There’s no doubt coaches can make a difference in athletes’ lives. But, how about a life-saving difference? That’s what University of Dubuque women’s basketball assistant coach Justin Smith did for 22 players and the team’s coaching staff on Sunday when he saw that the driver of their bus passed out while going 70 miles per hour, and jumped into action.

The Division III team was heading back to Iowa from a tournament in Nashville, Tennessee when the bus veered out of its lane on the freeway and hit a guardrail in Kentucky.

Smith noticed the driver was slumped over, so he sprang out of his seat and quickly hit the brakes to stop the bus.

“We’re still a little in shock,” Smith told The Associated Press on Monday. “I’m just thankful everyone’s OK. … I was lucky to be in the right place at the right time. The actual initial accident and me jumping out and grabbing the wheel felt like three seconds.”

Once the vehicle was stopped, other coaches got out to direct traffic to prevent another accident from occurring.

Smith, a former high school coach with many late night experiences on buses, said he has always thought about the possibility of a driver falling asleep.

“It’s fight or flight mechanism and 99 percent of the people would have done the exact same thing,” he said.

The bus driver, who was conscious by the time paramedics arrived on scene, was taken to a local hospital.

The team was a little startled by the incident, but has reportedly continued on with their regular schedule, which included practice and a film session on Monday.

Head coach Mark Noll said that those are the types of experiences that have the potential to draw a team closer.

“It does put things in perspective big time,” Noll said. “We’re playing a game and trying to achieve great things as a team and the adversity of what we went through yesterday makes us come that much closer together.”

Smith posted a statement on Twitter a day after the ordeal:

“Thank you to all of you for your prayers and praise following our accident in Kentucky,” he wrote. “It has been a truly humbling experience and, we are extremely blessed that everyone on the bus is ok. The actions taken by our coaching staff to ensure the safety of all of us on board makes me proud to be part of the Spartan Women’s Basketball Program! Please make sure to hug your loved ones a little tighter when you see them, and Go Spartans!

 

 

Without a doubt, Smith guided his team to their biggest “win” in school history.