NEW PODCAST: Austin Hatch, Former Michigan Basketball Player

By Jason Romano May 15, 2019

Michigan head coach John Beilein, left, stands with Austin Hatch, center, to honor Hatch's participation with the Michigan basketball team during senior day celebrations in Ann Arbor, Mich., Sunday, Feb. 18, 2018. (AP Photo/Tony Ding)

THIS IS EPISODE 298 OF THE SPORTS SPECTRUM PODCAST

Austin Hatch is an inspiration. His story has been seen and told by ESPN, NBC Nightly News, People Magazine and many others.

On Sept. 1, 2003, at the age of 8, Hatch survived a plane crash that took the lives of his mom, sister and brother. On June 24, 2011, nine days after making his commitment to play college basketball at the University of Michigan, Hatch was the only survivor in a second plane crash that took the lives of his father and his step-mother. Hatch suffered brain trauma, fractured ribs, a fractured sternum, a fractured hip, two broken collarbones and holes in his lung. He was also in a six-week-long induced coma, and he had to relearn how to walk and talk.

But he would make a full recovery and return to Michigan in 2014, achieving his dream of playing basketball for the Wolverines.

On this powerful episode of the podcast, we talk to Hatch about surviving two plane crashes, how he’s been able to turn something to tragic into something good, leaning on his faith in God, what coach John Beilein and the Michigan Wolverines have meant to him, and how his recovery after the second plane crash helped him grieve and drew him even closer to the Lord.

By doing the common things in an Uncommon way, we will leave every place better than we found it. pic.twitter.com/8GT9KLq6EU

— Austin Hatch (@AustinHatch30) April 30, 2018