Austin Hatch to take medical scholarship, retain full scholarship at Michigan

Michiganfreshman Austin Hatch, whose story of survival after two plane crashes has served as an inspiration to others, will alter his status with the basketball team, the school announced Monday.

Hatch will take a medical scholarship and serve as a student assistant coach. The switch will allow Hatch to continue to work with the team and retain his full scholarship.

"This isn't the end of my basketball career and I don't want people to look at this as if I'm quitting,'' Hatch told ESPN.com. "It's just a change. It just means, if there's a minute left in the game, I won't be coming in to hit a free throw.

"It's obvious I'm not going to be a professional basketball player. But after I graduate from Michigan, I am going to be a professional at something, and this allows me to concentrate on my studies but also stay involved with the team."

Hatch said Michigan coach John Beilein approached him with the idea of a student assistant position at the end of the season and he was immediately receptive. The school was awaiting approval from the Big Ten before making the announcement.

Though basketball has been a big part of his life since childhood, Hatch said he has come to realize that as a result of a traumatic brain injury suffered after the second plane crash in 2011, his abilities were not the same and likely never would be again.

But he insisted he was not upset about the change and instead was eager about the next chapter in his life, stressing in an interview Monday with ESPN.com the importance the game played in his recovery.

"Basketball was the goal that got me through rehab,'' he said. "It gave me something to shoot for. It got me here."

As a student assistant, Hatch will work with his teammates as a coach and mentor, but has the flexibility to pick and choose his schedule.

Cognitively, the traumatic brain injury has made schoolwork more difficult and with his new role, he can adjust his involvement to suit his studies.

"It won't be every day," he said. "If I have a big exam the next day, no way am I going to be there, but I can still be a big part of this team."

Hatch plans to take classes this summer and is eyeing a degree in organizational studies with an emphasis on economics and psychology. He once dreamed of following his father, Stephen, into the medical field, but has changed his focus since the second plane crash. He still wants to work with and help people.

That plan is a direct result of a journey that began in 2003. Then 8 years old, Hatch was flying home from his family's lake house in Michigan, with his father piloting the plane and his mother, older sister and younger brother also on board. The plane crashed in Indiana, killing his mother and siblings. Hatch survived only after his father, severely burned himself, threw him from the wreckage.

Eight years later, the unthinkable happened -- another plane crash, this time on the way to the lake house. Hatch's father and stepmother, Kim, were killed.

Hatch lived but with a brain injury so severe, doctors initially wondered what kind of life he would be able to lead. Instead, after months in a coma and extensive rehabilitation, Hatch enrolled last fall at Michigan and, with Beilein honoring the scholarship he had offered before the second plane crash, joined the basketball team.

Hatch scored his first collegiate point -- a free throw -- against Coppin State in December.