Ex-Canterbury basketballer Austin Hatch talks family

FORT WAYNE, Ind. (AP) - Despite the tragic loss of his parents and siblings in two plane crashes, former Canterbury basketball star Austin Hatch doesn't always feel like he has a lack of family.

"I really feel like the whole city of Fort Wayne is family to me," Hatch said after speaking at the 2016 Common Core Breakfast for Erin's House for Grieving Children on Tuesday morning. "Here, I just felt like I was saying a few words to a big family gathering. Fort Wayne is always going to be home to me. I know I spent some time in California and now Ann Arbor, but Fort Wayne is home."

Hatch, 21, delivered a message of optimism to those gathered at the Memorial Coliseum Conference Center.

Raised in Fort Wayne, Hatch lived in California for a while and is currently a sophomore at the University of Michigan. When in Fort Wayne, he stays at the family home of his best friend and former Canterbury teammate Trent VanHorn.

He considers himself still in the "honeymoon stage" of speaking to large gatherings and has done about five speeches so far.

"I feel very comfortable up there (onstage), and I feel tremendously blessed and honored to be in a position to be impactful on others and use my misfortune to help others," he said.

And Hatch has a lot to say.

"Embrace loss, embrace tragedy - embrace everything," Hatch said of his usual message. "To overcome it, you have to embrace it, in my view. I have been empowered by God to help me overcome it, and I have been motivated by the process of overcoming it. I didn't know how the world was leading, I just worked hard. I was resilient.

"What happens to you isn't as important as how you respond. I am appreciative for all I have, and I have been adaptive. I once was a really good basketball player, . now I have to be really good at something else, and I am working to be good at business. I have tried to be courageous and have enthusiasm for life. Last but not least on the road to recovery is integrity; you can't take short cuts and you have to be tough. I have tried to be tough, not just physically tough but mentally tough as well."

A 2003 plane crash took his mother, brother and sister, then a 2011 plane crash killed his father and stepmother - while he survived both tragedies.

A Michigan basketball recruit before the second crash, he recovered and was able to play basketball last season for the Wolverines before getting a medical waiver from the Big Ten to continue his scholarship and finish his education. Hatch spent eight weeks in a coma after the second crash, but in November 2014, he played five minutes in a Michigan game and made a free throw. He received the 2015 U.S. Basketball Writers Association Courage Award.

"It was a dream come true," Hatch said of being able to play for the Wolverines. "The odds would say for someone who was in a coma they are never going to get there, you wouldn't think they would get on a Division I basketball court and score. I feel very fortunate to be able to recover the way I did and have the tremendous care that I received all the way through. I couldn't have done it without so many people contributing to my recovery.

"Basketball is a tool to learn life lessons about being resilient and coming back . and rallying to win. A lot of things teach bigger things than the sport than whatever it may be, and basketball is one of those."

Hatch attended Canterbury for three years and played basketball for two seasons before finishing his high school education and prep playing career with an uncle in California.

Nowadays, Hatch is just a college student, majoring in organizational studies, interning at Domino's Farms in Ann Arbor, about 10 miles from the Michigan campus, and looking to getting into business management when his education is complete.

"I am working 50 hours a week," he said. "I won't have much of a summer, but you have to work for a living sometime. I look forward to using my talents to help others in a business that my dad (Dr. Stephen Hatch) said, 'a business that consistently and constructively contributes to civilization.'?"

The tragedies in his life and the subsequent incredible recovery will always have a lasting impact on Hatch's life, so he feels the responsibility to leave a lasting impact himself.

"It made me more appreciative for everything I have and all that I am blessed to still have," he said of how the last few years have shaped his life. "I have obviously experienced tremendous loss, but I feel it is essential to focus more on what you actually have. It has made me appreciate my family more. Obviously, I appreciated them before, but I really value relationships more because I have learned it can be taken away in a blink of an eye. You just never know.

"It has almost made me work harder, too, because I had to work hard in my recovery. If you are going to go after something, why not give it all you got?"

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Source: The (Fort Wayne) Journal Gazette, http://bit.ly/1TzE25C

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Information from: The Journal Gazette, http://www.journalgazette.net