By MIKE COURSON
Great Bend Post
It usually takes a good four years to make it into a school's athletic hall of fame. Great Bend's Shawn Behr needed just one season to do it at Fort Hays State University. Playing just one season as the Tigers starting quarterback in 1995, Behr led FHSU to an 8-2-2 record and earned AP All-American First-Team honor. On Saturday, Oct. 28, he will enter the FHSU Hall as one of the school's greatest quarterbacks ever.
"There's a lot of pride involved," he said. "I know I fell into a situation that somebody was looking out for me - the football Gods if they ever looked out for a guy - they dropped me in Hays for a reason. I'm proud to say there are 55 other guys who were benefactors of all of us being on the same football field. I'm just one of the guys who gets a little acknowledgment for something everyone else did."
Behr graduated from Great Bend High School in 1991. His 392 passing yards in a single game against Dodge City in 1990 remain a school record, and he ranks second with 4,081 career passing yards. His 1,918 passing yards as a senior rank fifth all-time at the school. He was also a three-year letter winner for the Panther baseball and basketball teams.
"We all have that one coach that instills confidence and a love for the game," Behr said. "I liked playing baseball, but my high school football coach, Tim Friess, instilled a confidence and love for a game that I could never shake."
Behr's path to FHSU stardom then becomes a twisty one. He committed to play football at Garden City Community College under coach Brian McNeely. But that summer, he had a big night under the baseball lights and opted to play baseball at Barton Community College instead. He missed the gridiron.
"I got a magical call one evening at Christmas," he said. "Brian McNeely had gotten the head coaching job at Idaho State and was offering me a full ride to come up to Idaho State and be his quarterback. They had a dome, Div. I, full-ride. Yeah, because I had missed football."
Behr played two seasons for the Bengals but could see the writing on the wall. Idaho State would be running the ball more the following season. Instead of being demoted, he wanted to be promoted. Back in Hays, he spoke to Tiger Baseball coach Curtis Hammeke, another Great Bend graduate. Due to NCAA rules, Hammeke had to report that conversation back to McNeely. Behr knew his time in Pocatello was done.
Back in Hays, Behr made it about three weeks into the baseball season before realizing he again missed playing football. He walked onto the football team and sat a year behind starting quarterback Dustin McEwen.
Then came the big 1995 season in Hays. Behr set the school's single-season record with 3,497 yards on 211-of-365 passing. That still ranks No. 2 at FHSU. His 34 touchdown passes that season also set a single-season record until Chance Fuller threw 35 touchdown passes in 2019. No other Tiger quarterback has thrown for more than 25 scores in a season. Behr's 390 yards against New Mexico Highlands that season rank 13th at FHSU for a single game, and he has three of the school's top-21 totals for a single game.
"We could throw it around," Behr said. "In my opinion, as a group, that was probably the best receiving corps in the nation. We had Xavier Brown and Kahn Powell. Both of those guys went on to play in arena ball. Frank Martin, probably one of the fastest of the groups, and of course Lance Schwindt. I think he made it to the second cuts of the Denver Broncos training camp."
Part of the legend of Behr's 1995 season is the number he wore. Coach Bob Cortese had an unfortunate nickname for his 6-3, 220-pound quarterback. That played out with Behr settling on the No. 34.
"Thirty-three wouldn't fit," he said. "In all honesty, that's exactly how that happened. At a D-II, you don't have a big budget. They're not a big-budget program so they can't alter No. 12 or 17, which were my preferred numbers. I started going through numbers to see if they would fit over my pads and I could breathe. I got all the way up to 33 that didn't fit, and finally 34, I could say the ABCs. I thought, I'm just going to go with it."
Hammeke is now the athletic director at FHSU, and he made the call to Behr to tell him he was going into the hall of fame.
"I had to tell him, 'Can you call me back in about five minutes?'" Behr said. "It caught me off guard. I didn't know for sure if I'd actually heard it correctly. He was one of my coaches coming up through the ranks, and I didn't want to be a blubbering idiot to him."
Behr immediately went online to invite former teammates to the induction ceremony. He also invited players from the softball team he has coached for several years.
"Here I've been coaching these girls in softball for the last six years, and telling them different things to do and making sure they understand the importance of being a good teammate," he said. "I thought no better place to put that on spectacle than at that venue at that time."
Behr and seven others will be inducted into the Tiger Sports Hall of Fame on Saturday, Oct. 28 at 9 a.m. The group will be recognized at halftime of the Tiger football game later that afternoon. Behr's attendance is conditional. His daughter, Kya, is a member of the Lady Panther volleyball team that could be playing in the Class 5A State Championships in Salina that day. That, he said, he would not miss for the world.