ANN ARBOR, Mich. — An Indiana high school basketball standout who survived a Michigan plane crash last year that killed his father and stepmother after surviving a 2003 crash that killed his mother plans to play college basketball next year.
Austin Hatch, of Fort Wayne, made a verbal commitment to play basketball at the University of Michigan before the June crash near the Charlevoix airport. He told the Detroit Free Press in an interview published Tuesday that he’ll be on the court with the Wolverines in 2013.
“The most difficult thing is just missing my biological family, because I’m the only one left,” he said. “I wish there was an instructional manual in how to deal with this kind of loss.”
Hatch, who was 16 at the time of the crash, said he’ll use a scholarship to live the life he and his father always had imagined. He has yet to be cleared to play and said he didn’t care, trusting his doctors will tell him when it’s appropriate. He said he thinks no one else can relate to his situation.
“No one that I know of,” he said. “If there is someone, I haven’t met them yet.”