Monson: Utah father finds reasons to live after the death of his sons

Syracuse •

The big, burly, bearded bear of a man stands at the end of a basketball court, watching the boys he loves play the game he loves in a gym he loves. He watches them carefully as they gallop up and down the floor. They all are other fathers' sons, but now they are his, too, riveted into his existence, each of them a sweet — and bitter — reminder of what life — and death — have given to — and taken from — him.

Hanging around is hard, but therapeutic, a taste of heaven and hell.

When he looks closely, he can almost see his own boys running the floor, shooting the rock, playing with their friends, again. Almost. As though the accident never happened. He can see, beamed up on the big screen in his brain, a hustling mix of his flesh and blood, their sweat and suddenly his tears spilling down his face at what is gone.

Daulton and Jaxon are gone, killed in a plane crash in July on their way to a summer basketball tournament in Las Vegas. Daulton was piloting the small craft, Jaxon was a passenger on that awful Sunday evening. And Rhett Whatcott, a still-grieving dad and volunteer assistant at Syracuse High School, coaches his sons' buddies in the aftermath because that endeavor helps him get by. It helps him remember the boys, who were 19 and 16 at the time of their deaths, and honor them and feel close to them. It helps take his pain away, but it also stirs raw memories and questions regarding fate's inexorable cruelty.

"I enjoy these kids," Whatcott says. "I have a strong connection with them. But every time you find an inkling of happiness, you think, almost in a guilty way, 'I'm doing this without my sons.' "

Still, he knows his presence brings comfort to the young players left behind, many of whom played for Whatcott in junior leagues through the years, and who now have dedicated their high school season to their fallen friends with the number 55, a combo of Daulton's 50 and Jaxon's 5.

"It's been hard," says Nick Olsen, a guard who was tight with Jaxon. "There's been a lot of anger. I'm jealous of people who still have their best friend. Mine is gone. But when I'm around the game, I think about him all the time. [Tuesday] night was our first home game, against West Jordan. We won by two. I felt like there were seven players for us on the court. It's unfair for the other team, but that's how we feel."

The players, too, can see Rhett's sons. Almost.

"The whole thing has been real tough," says Calvin Mudrow, a junior center and team captain who wears Daulton's old number as a tribute. "I'm not one to show much emotion, but when it happened, I cried for two straight weeks. Now, I dedicate five minutes every day to thinking about [them], then put on my game face and just get going."

"We're all on a long road of recovering," junior Alex Christiansen says. "But to play for Daulton and Jaxon and to honor them is a great experience, to do things the right way. It's made us all come together. And having Rhett here, just to be with him. … We love him. We're doing what we all love doing — with him."

In a kind of intergenerational transmission, Whatcott passed along his passion for football and basketball to his kids. He and his wife, Eileen, who live in Clinton, brought up four children — Dace, now a rugby player at Weber State, Daulton, Jaxon, and 14-year-old Aubri — to appreciate every sport.

Often, Rhett, a senior manager for a silicon manufacturer, carved out the time to coach his kids, and he had a fine time doing so.

"There was a great group of kids and parents around the boys," he says. "I never got paid, it was just about all of us having fun and getting better. It started with Dace and intensified with Daulton and Jaxon. Between the two of them, we had a basketball game every night. We had a ton of fun."

Daulton played at Syracuse High before graduating in 2013 and went on to attend Utah State. Jaxon was just emerging as a talented player who would have entered his junior season this year. "He would have been a star," says Syracuse head coach Troy Anderson. "We were grooming him at shooting guard. I had high hopes for him."

Everyone around the Titan basketball program did. And, in part, it was Jaxon's noble pursuit of fulfilling his potential that led to his and his brother's tragic demise.

The two of them were on their way to an AAU tournament in Vegas when the crash happened. Daulton, who had earned his pilot's license, and who hoped to become a commercial pilot, was operating a small Cessna plane with Jaxon as his passenger, having taken off from Bountiful en route to Mesquite, Nevada, where Rhett and Eileen and Aubri awaited them. Along the way, Daulton landed the plane in Beaver as a precaution when high winds kicked up.

"We were going to go back and get them in Beaver," says Whatcott, who had driven with other family members in his truck to the airport in Mesquite. "But Daulton said he had talked with somebody who told him the conditions had improved and that they could take off. I said, 'OK, are you sure?' He said, 'Yeah, Dad, everything will be all right.' "

Everything was not all right.

Rhett had flown with his son before, and so had Eileen, and they had confidence in his abilities and judgment. As a Father's Day present, Daulton had piloted his dad high over Antelope Island. It was a treat. "He was so serious about every detail," Whatcott says. "After that, I didn't have any hesitation about his flying."

But now Rhett and Eileen started to hesitate as they sat in their truck at the Mesquite Airport, waiting for their sons. It was about 6 p.m. on Sunday, July 20, when Jaxon texted his father and informed him that they would arrive in 15 minutes. That 15 turned into 20 and 25 and 30 and 35, with no sign of the boys' plane. Somewhere in that span, Rhett started to worry. Worry turned to prayer and prayer turned to panic and panic turned to desperate phone calls and desperate phone calls turned to a sick feeling that something had gone horribly wrong.

"Finally, I put my head on the steering wheel and said another prayer," Rhett says. "I asked God, 'If my boys are in an accident, please don't let them be in any pain. Please, just take them.' "

While flying near the Virgin River Gorge, the boys' plane, coming in low, suddenly inverted before slamming into a canyon wall and hitting the ground in a blazing heap near I-15.

When news of what happened came — the exact words from an official were: "There's been an accident in the gorge; there were no survivors" — to the Whatcotts, Rhett, now standing outside his truck, fell to the hot red dirt beneath his feet.

"I went down in a kind of crippling agony," he says, the plumbing now backing up in his eyes. "I dropped and screamed, 'No, no, no.' My wife and daughter, we cried and cried. It was like all functions leave you. You can't believe it. You can't believe it. It wasn't just one son, it was two. In that moment, I don't think you fully process it. Even now, it's like, this can't be true. It's a bad dream. You'll wake up and the boys will be there. But they never are."

That's the hardest part, a recurring scenario Whatcott says he goes through every morning, the second he awakens. He relives the reality of his sons' deaths: "It hits you again. There's already a hole in your heart and it's like somebody rips the scab off your wound, over and over. You pray, you work, you put on a happy face. You don't want to bring anybody down. But sometimes it's just too much. Sometimes, I'll go to the cemetery and talk to them and have a good cry. Sometimes, it's multiple cries. The thing that's amplified is, 'How do I go on? And how can I ever be happy again?' "

Rhett says that's where Daulton's and Jaxon's friends, and many others who have given support, come to his rescue.

"They come and tell stories about the boys, things we never would have known without them telling us. It's amazing the kind words we hear from people, the support they give. Daulton and Jaxon were great kids. It's especially good being around the boys' friends."

And, so, the big, burly, bearded bear of a man stands at the end of the court, watching the boys he loves play the game he loves at a place he loves, where his memories are raw but warm. A few of the players wear Nikes with Jaxon's name and number embroidered on them. All of the players remember both brothers fondly.

Outside an adjacent gymnasium door, there are plans for a memorial bench to be built, with trees to be planted around it. The Syracuse Titans want to remember their friends, Rhett's kids, and play with everything they've got, live with everything they've got, to honor them.

"When it first happened, I was angry," says Braxton Kay, a 16-year-old guard. "After that, I just wanted Jaxon's legacy remembered. He was a fun kid. He was a leader by example. He always had a smile for everybody."

Kay pauses, wipes a little sweat away, glancing over at Rhett, and continues.

"He's back with his boys here, doing what he's always done. For all of us, he's like our second dad. We love the guy."

And the guy loves them, through all his grief, finding reasons to carry on.

"Basketball was such a great bonding thing between me and my sons," Rhett Whatcott says. "So, I want to be around their friends. I didn't know if I could even step on a court again. But it's good to be with the kids. I've learned, I guess, that I can get through this. I can. I have to. I can survive. I can … live."

GORDON MONSON hosts "The Big Show" with Spence Checketts weekdays from 3-7 p.m. on 97.5 FM and1280 AM The Zone. Twitter: @GordonMonson.