He hoped to play hoops in the fall. But freak basketball accident kills Indiana teen

He was hoping to play freshman hoops when he started high school in the fall.

How many generations of children in the Hoosier state have had a similar dream?

On Friday evening, 14-year-old Nolan Gerwels was playing basketball with his little sister on an indoor court at their home in Granger, Indiana, according to the South Bend Tribune, when something inexplicably went wrong.

The basketball rim, the backboard and the brace came out of the wall and hit Nolan on the head, Bill Thompson, assistant chief of police in St. Joseph County told the Tribune.

It was a fatal blow. Nolan was pronounced dead at Memorial Hospital in South Bend, the newspaper reports.

"This is horrific and overwhelming," Nolan's mother, Margaret Gerwels, said in a statement to WNDU in South Bend and other media outlets. "We are a close family, so everyone bears this heavy weight of his absence. He was so, so loved by everyone."

This is the second child Margaret Gerwels and her husband, Kevin, have lost in the last few months. Their baby named Nerissa was stillborn in November, in the same hospital where Nolan died.

A photo of a somber Nolan cradling the baby is on his mother's Facebook page.

Nolan, who recently finished eighth grade as an honor student, is survived by three sisters and a brother, according to his obituary. He was into music and sports - baseball, cross country, track and field where he was a high jumper, and basketball.

He had just finished conditioning with the Marian High School basketball team, where he hoped to make the freshman team in the fall, his obituary says.

"He was dedicated to everything he did, whether it was his school work, practicing for a band concert, learning a new play, or perfecting his shot," says his obituary.

"Nolan never did anything halfway. He gave everything and everyone one hundred percent of himself. Nolan was always willing to help anyone - he even spent the last three years as assistant coach for his little sister's upward basketball team. He was just an all-around great kid and nice guy."

It's not known what caused the backboard to fall off the wall.

"Obviously this is an extremely unusual event, so we’re doing a little bit of investigation in terms of just exactly how the goal and the support bracket for it was anchored to the wall," Thompson told the Indianapolis Star.

Nolan's funeral will be on Friday.

His parents have asked members of every team Nolan ever played on to wear their uniforms to his services.