Austin Hatch, age 23, has a story to tell

ANN ARBOR — Austin Hatch is dressed in slacks and a dress shirt, taking time to talk in between schoolwork and a meeting. He takes two dribbles, steps back and lofts a 3-pointer. The ball sails high, then lands, echoing through Crisler Center.

A magnificent air ball.

“Man, back in the day … ” he says.

This is Austin Hatch, age 23. For a young guy, he has the self-deprecating, middle-aged guy act down cold. He elicits much eye-rolling. Despite working out with a college basketball team for the better part of four years and being in impeccable shape, he pats his belly and says, “I’m just kind of in a maintenance phase.” He grins, adding, “Gotta fit in that tux.”

Hammy jokes in tow, Hatch will graduate from the University of Michigan next month, marry his dream girl on June 16 and start a job in the Domino’s corporate office on July 7. That will all follow this weekend’s events, when Hatch and the Wolverines head to San Antonio for the Final Four.

When he says, “back in the day,” it’s a line that hangs in the air and darkens the sky. A lot happened back in the day. Too much for anyone to comprehend. To be clear, Hatch, himself, would never say that. Hatch is as congenial and relatable as anyone you will meet. It’s just that his story — the one ABC, CBS and ESPN and myriad news outlets in Michigan, Indiana and California have all attempted to produce versions of over the years — is one no Hollywood director would dare concoct. It’s unfathomable in both its diegesis and its emotion. It can’t be real, and that’s why it continues to be told, and retold, then told again.

Around Michigan basketball, it’s something that everyone has grown used to. Around Michigan basketball, Austin Hatch is merely … Austin. “Here,” he says, “it’s just nice to not be treated as if I’m some rare, special, remarkable story.” This is how he likes it.

Everywhere else, Hatch is something of a beacon. He is his story. He is a survivor of two plane crashes — a 2003 wreck that claimed his mother, brother and sister; and a 2011 wreck that claimed his father and step-mother. His civic contract is one of fame and infamy. He feels in the depths of his soul that he is still alive for a greater purpose. There’s no other rational reason for him waking up this morning and brushing his teeth. He leans forward when he says: “I have to use the gifts I’ve been given to give back to other people.” That’s why he’s in the early stages of a public speaking career, sharing his story with schools, teams, non-profit groups, church groups, insurance companies and financial firms.

Herein lies Hatch’s conflict. Ready to drift on from the perfectly circumscribed environment of college life, he walks a tightrope of selfhood. There’s a fine line to reconcile his two desires.

On one side, he says: “I actually think it would be quote-unquote normal to have what happened to me be my story. But I want my story to be what happens after the story.”

Being a public speaker, though, carries the burden of identity politics. In front of a room of strangers, he’s a crash survivor; a totem pole of emotional and physical perseverance. He is a living, breathing biography of what happens when willpower meets tragedy. Willpower wins; then it tells a room of people that they, too, can overcome adversity.

It’s a catch-22 of biblical proportions. Hatch doesn’t want to only be identified with his past, but there’s value in sharing his message, and by doing so, he reinforces that past.

Earlier this winter, Hatch sat on a couch in his Ann Arbor condo with an older cousin, Kevin O’Donnell, who was among the key players in Hatch’s amazing, sprawling support group of family, friends and medical personnel who couriered him through the past seven years. Hatch presented the idea of public speaking, doing so with a twinge of apprehension. O’Donnell told him about the day in 2011 when a doctor told the family that Austin sustained a diffuse axonal injury. O’Donnell googled it, reading about major brain trauma.

Then he added two words to the search: success stories.

“I told him the story, and it was, ‘Hey, you’re sharing your story to give other people hope. This is no longer about you. This is about them,’” O’Donnell says, retelling the story by phone. “I think that’s really the reason he’s doing this. His speech is about adversity, perseverance and all the other cliché things people say. But the No. 1 thing is hope for others.”

And if it’s hope they’re looking for, then it’s hope they will get. Ask anyone about Austin Hatch and you will learn that he is who he needs to be, when and where he needs to be it.

Abby Cole, a former All-America volleyball player at Michigan, sees all the sides. The two started dating in 2014, two months after she arrived late for Political Science 101 in a 300-student lecture hall and Hatch waved her over to an empty seat. He proposed on April 29, 2017, the day she graduated from U-M. The wedding is now only 10 weeks away. A grand party is planned on Walloon Lake.

Sitting over a cup of coffee in downtown Ann Arbor, Cole looks straight ahead, trying to explain how and why Hatch is who he is.

“He does a really good job of compartmentalizing,” she says. “When he’s at Crisler, he’s a basketball player, and when he’s in lectures, he’s a student. When he’s with me, he’s a fiancé. When he’s with his family, he’s a nephew, a grandson. You know … I think he’s just … I don’t think there’s an easy answer for that.”

Cole stops and starts, then says: “With Austin, when you go through what he’s been through, there’s not a playbook, you know? No one has gone through what he’s gone through in that same way, and, well, I don’t think many people would respond as well as he has.”

Cole, O’Donnell says, filled “a great emptiness” in Hatch’s life. She was prodded by that massive support system to assure her good intentions. John Beilein called U-M volleyball coach Mark Rosen to make sure she was legit. Beilein then enlisted his wife, Kathleen, to have lunch with her, not to get to know Cole, but as a secret test. She passed all of the obstacles with ease.

Hatch and Cole describe their relationship as a fairy tale. It’s the preface, though, that’s inescapably in view. Hatch still has difficult days. He once told Cole that the life-altering injuries he sustained in the second crash were secretly a blessing — the ensuing recovery was the only fathomable diversion from the emotional atom bomb of losing his father. Talk about no playbook? There was, nor is, any guide for the immediate aftermath of having a best friend, mentor and hero taken away from you. Dr. Stephen Hatch was all of those to young Austin.

Of all the incomprehensible layers in Hatch’s story, the disproportional amount of loss versus living he’s had to endure carries a singular gravity. That pain never leaves. It changes. It manifests itself in other ways. But it doesn’t go away.

It rings in the distance, but remains present in the here and now.

“He has Senior Day. He graduates from Michigan, where his mom graduated from 30 years ago. He gets married. He starts his first full-time job,” Cole says. “It’s just kinda back-to-back-to back-to-back major life moments, and it’s great. They’re all happy things, but I think those are when you want your family there the most.”

Austin Hatch and his fiancé, Abby Cole (second from right), along with members of Hatch’s family, take the floor at Crisler Center during Senior Day festivities on Feb. 18.

Amid this, Hatch is choosing to be out in front, sharing his story. He agreed to speak with the media before Senior Day at Crisler Center. He’s talked to unknown, out-of-town reporters asking empty questions in Michigan’s NCAA Tournament locker room. He’s pursuing public speaking with the same vigor he brings to all of his passions.

His speech is about GRIT, what he calls “a four-letter word with five components.”

“Grit starts with knowing our purpose,” he says. “Knowing why we do what we do. That purpose has to be bigger than ourselves.”

Some of Hatch’s tenets, not surprisingly, are borrowed directly from the pages of Michigan basketball. He talks about the Growth mindset theory developed by Stanford professor Carol Dweck. “Learn. Get better. Propel forward,” he says. He explains Resilience: “What happens to us is never bigger than how we respond.” He talks about Integrity: “Doing the right thing when no one is looking.” And finally, the power of a Team-first mentality: “Others before yourself.”

Hatch shares his message, but it’s one that is, quite naturally, pulled through the keyhole of where he’s been and what he’s seen.

“It’s always a little bit of a reminder of what he’s lost,” Cole says. “I’d say, for the most part, even though it’s positive, it can take him back to a place …”

Cole trails off, because no one can begin to comprehend what that place is.

“I’ve lost a tremendous amount, and obviously everyone knows it’s extremely difficult, tragic,” Hatch says. “I’ve grieved about things, and that’s normal. But I don’t see how sulking through the tough days helps. My family, if they were here, would encourage me to pick it up and keep moving forward. That’s what I do. I don’t push feelings aside. I embrace them. I’ve suffered tremendous loss, and there should be tough days. If there wasn’t, something would be wrong.”

That doesn’t make his two realities any easier, but Hatch has never much wondered why things can’t be easier. He lives a life that has to move straight ahead, figuring out the next step as he goes. As O’Donnell, his cousin, says, “I think the story is really just beginning for him.”

Indeed, Hatch views his extraordinary life as chapters in a book. There are beginnings and endings. At 23, he’s most excited about marrying Abby and starting a family — becoming a father. First, though, this week, one improbable chapter will find its end. College basketball is saying farewell to Hatch at, of all places, the Final Four. Coming to U-M in 2014, he appeared in five career games, scoring one point on a memorable free throw that drew an eruption at Crisler. He stepped away from the game after his freshman year to focus on his recovery and academics, but never strayed far. Now, his team, built on the sediment of grit, is two wins from a national championship, and he’ll share his story, once again, on the biggest stage in sports.

One would say it’s an impossible ending. Clearly, no such thing exists.

The day Hatch air-balled that 3-pointer was back in mid-January. He chased the ball down, jogging across the floor at Crisler Center. “Can’t leave on that,” he said. He squared his shoulders and tossed up another one.

It rattled in.

“There you go.”

Austin Hatch is moving on, moving forward, the only way he knows how.

(Photos by Dustin Johnston/ Special to The Athletic)

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Austin Hatch, age 23, has a story to tell