Michigan recruits Austin Hatch who survived two plane crashes

Michigan Wolverines recently recruited Austin Hatch, a 19-year old player who survvied two plane crashes.

Austin lost his father, mother, brother, sister and stepmother in the two plane crashes.



PER ESPN,  "The emotional pain is never going to subside," Hatch said Wednesday. "Over time, the way I cope with my loss is going to change."

Basketball is gradually coming back to Hatch, a straight-A student who spent the past two years relearning how to breathe, eat, walk and live after surviving a plane crash for the second time in his life.

In June 2011, just 10 days after he verbally committed to play for the Wolverines, his father and stepmother were killed in a crash in Charlevoix, Mich., that left him in a coma for roughly eight weeks with a traumatic brain injury, a punctured lung and fractured ribs. Eight years earlier, the Fort Wayne, Ind., native had lived through another fatal plane crash, losing his mother, brother and sister in that tragedy.

He signed a national letter of intent with Michigan last week, and coach John Beilein has vowed Hatch will be welcome in the program in any role he can play.

"Signing with the University of Michigan has been a goal of mine since I basically woke up from my coma," Hatch said. "Last week, it was kind of surreal to actually see my name on that dotted line. I can't tell you how blessed I feel to be in that position."

Hatch moved from Indiana to Southern California this past summer to live with his uncle and guardian, Michael Hatch, and to take advantage of superior rehabilitation opportunities.

"Basketball is just a game, and I understand that I have bigger goals in life," Hatch said. "My academics come first. Basketball has always been second for me, but basketball has given me something to shoot for."

Although Hatch lost his immediate family, he is with his uncle and grandparents in Los Angeles, where he has been practicing with the Loyola High School Cubs since September and where he will finish school. He'll head off to Ann Arbor with the support of a new extended family at Loyola.

"When you're inches, millimeters away from death, you really understand," he said. "You look at that from a different lens. Every day, the opportunities I have with my family, my friends, all the guys here at Loyola, it's just a great group of people out here."

Hatch averaged 23.3 points and 9.3 rebounds per game as a sophomore at Canterbury School in Fort Wayne, attracting attention from major programs. Hatch and his father chose Michigan primarily for its academic reputation, figuring Hatch could follow his father, an anesthesiologist, into medicine.