Mark Atuaia, who coaches the running backs on Bronco Mendenhall's staff at Virginia, was down in Davie, Florida on a recruiting trip before National Signing Day when he stopped at a local grocery store for his tried-and-true road snack of diet Mountain Dew and Fig Newtons.
According to the Richmond Times-Dispatch, as he was leaving with his snacks, Atuaia witnessed a car hit a woman before driving off.
"My car was still on, so I put it into drive, and I went to chase the car. All I was going to try to do was just get a license plate then come back."
But that's not how things played out after he hopped in his car. The car that fled the scene approached a stop light, and that's when Atuaia pinned the car in with his rental (which was "well insured by the school), opened the door of the door of the car he had just chased down, took the keys out of the ignition, and threw them out of reach.
"I watch too much 'COPS'." Atuaia added after the incident.
By that time, a security guard from the grocery store had made it to them and took over. Atuaia returned to the scene of the hit and run to help the woman, who was later treated for injuries at a nearby hospital. Modest, Atuaia noted that his wife thinks he's an idiot, but thinks that he acted just as any reasonable person would have in that same situation.
According to a police report that was filed on the incident, the driver of the hit and run had their windows fog up on the rainy afternoon and they had no idea what had just happened. If that's true, you can imagine their surprise when Atuaia pinned their car in at the light and ripped their keys from the ignition.
The icing on the cake from this whole situation is #1 - the woman that was hit didn't suffer any serious injuries according to reports, and #2 - a Letter of Intent rolled in on National Signing Day yesterday from the recruit that Atuaia was down there trying to seal the deal with, so it was all well worth it in the end.