Teenage football and basketball player from Glen Burnie killed in accident

Glen Burnie High School basketball coach Mike Rudd often mocked Anthony Hinton III for having the game of a 35-year-old player. Hinton was “old school” and one day, the coach said, his age would catch up with his style.

However, Hinton died Wednesday after he lost control of his vehicle on Ritchie Highway and crashed into a tree, police said. He was 18 years old.

“I love Anthony,” Rudd said of his small forward and friend, who has played with him for four years. “We are all in shock right now.”

At around 12:30 a.m. Wednesday, patrol officers from the Anne Arundel County Police Department’s Northern District came upon the scene of the accident, according to a news release. The 2011 Infinity G37 Hinton was traveling and left the road, crossing a raised median and into the oncoming lane before colliding with a tree.

Hinton, affectionately known as “Manman” by friends and family, was pronounced dead at the scene, police said. Paramedics took a 17-year-old passenger to the R. Adams Cowley Shock Trauma Center in Baltimore with life-threatening injuries.

“You just don’t know,” his father, Anthony Hinton Jr., said Wednesday. “There was only one Manman.”

This was not the first time Hinton Jr. has experienced tragedy. Last year, his eldest son, Dante Stansbury, was found shot to death in a car in East Baltimore. The family is focused on being there for each other before making funeral arrangements, Hinton Jr. said.

Hinton’s family described Manman as “the epitome of what you want in a son” – direct but respectful and a popular trendsetter – and his coaches described him as the boy you wanted to be friends with, the person others were attracted to.

“They all loved him,” said Alec Lemon, head football coach at Glen Burnie High. He remembered Hinton as someone who always had a joke ready and could diffuse even the most tense situation. “He always found a way to be positive.”

Hinton had just finished his freshman year at Shenandoah University in Winchester, Virginia, where the 6-foot-1 teenager played football as a defensive end after playing just one season at Glen Burnie High. Hinton graduated in 2023 as a veteran of the Gophers’ football and basketball teams.

During the summer, Hinton worked at the coach’s basketball camps for kids, leading the players in drills and practices. Once the season was in full swing, Rudd felt like he had “an extra coach on the field” because of his knowledge of the game.

“I’ve just watched him develop so much as a person in those four years,” Rudd said.

Greg Avent coached Hinton on the football and basketball courts his senior year. Hinton was “a real light for the community,” Avent said.