At 10 a.m. on March 8, the basketball courts at Emporia State’s Student Recreation Center were occupied by 31 teams representing elementary, middle school and adult divisions of the Adam Tebben 3V3 Basketball Tournament. This is the second year that Emporia community members have gathered to play ball and raise funds for ESU’s Adam Tebben Memorial Nursing Scholarship.
Adam Tebben graduated from ESU’s nursing program and worked as a flight nurse until his tragic passing in early 2024. He died in the crash of a medical evacuation helicopter transporting a patient to Oklahoma City.
Brandon Wolter, Adam’s friend and brother-in-law, conceived the basketball tournament as a way to honor his memory and raise funds for a nursing scholarship.
“It was just something Adam and I did back when he was in college here, we played basketball,” said Wolter. “We traveled to Chase County to play basketball on a couple of Sundays. We always watched the KU games with each other. We texted each other during the KU games, talking about trash back and forth. So I thought of a way just to help with the scholarship and the fundraiser and stuff.”
The tournament last year reached its goal of 25 teams. Although Wolter was only expecting around 20 teams to sign up for this year, enough teams signed up that, considering the limited number of courts in the recreation center, he had to cap the teams at 31.
Wolter also decided to add a three-point contest after the pool play and before the single elimination tournament. He explains, “I figured it’d just be a way to keep people moving, you know, instead of just kind of sitting around while we make the bracket and figure all that out. It’ll be something else for people to do.”
All of the proceeds for the event go directly to the Adam Tebben Memorial Scholarship, which provides financial aid to exceptional students of ESU’s nursing program. The scholarship has reached the financial goal necessary for it to become an endowed scholarship, meaning that the scholarship will continue to be distributed annually and another donation is not necessary for the continuity of the scholarship.
According to his father, Dallas Tebben, Adam was an “achiever” and a dedicated caregiver. He served as president of the Kansas State Nurses Association and the National Student Nurses’ Association, and was a nationally recognized speaker on the topics of nursing leadership and development. An article from the Kansas State Nurses Association states that Tebben once said, “My greatest honor is to be preparing for a profession where I will devote my life to the health and well-being of others.” Dallas explains that this scholarship is intended to help people with precisely that type of passion for nursing.
“That’s the type of person you’re trying to help with the scholarship, somebody that is not only in need of a scholarship, but somebody that can qualify for a scholarship of that nature,” said Dallas. “We would like to pick somebody similar to him, because you want those kind of people out there helping people, especially in the nursing field.”
Through both the nursing scholarship and the communal aspect of competitive basketball, the tournament has a strong impact on its participants.
Shavian Thurman, a competitor in the adult tournament, said, “It’s good for the community. We’re all here as a family. We’re here to play, have fun, show up and show out on the court, show what you got, and then give it your best.”
Thurman’s teammate, ESU nursing student Will Hess, commented, “The whole thing with this being about nursing, the money to that sort of charity, really speaks a lot to me. I care a lot about people being healthy, keeping themselves safe, safe in terms of their health care. And I’m glad that’s where the money’s going.”
