Mark Atwater walked out of St. Luke's Hospital at 6:30 Saturday night on his own, less than four hours after being the victim of a frightening hit during Coe's football game at Clark Field.

Atwater suffered a sprained neck and possible concussion, but was treated and released Saturday and spent Saturday night at home.

"Mark is doing OK now," Larry Atwater, his father and one of Coe's assistant coaches, said Sunday afternoon. "There was nothing broken, thank goodness, or anything like that."

Larry Atwater compared his son's sprained neck to whiplash from a car accident. Mark Atwater's head snapped back when he was tackled while running with the ball in the third quarter.

One Loras player had grabbed onto Atwater's legs when another defender arrived and hit Atwater near the neck and head as he struggled for another yard and a possible first down. Atwater was in a defenseless position at the time and unable to protect himself from the second defender, but nobody suggested it was an illegal or intentionally dangerous hit.

Atwater was treated for approximately 15 minutes on the field before being taken to the hospital by ambulance. He was able to move his extremities while being examined on the field and apparently escaped with relatively minor ailments.

"From everything that it could have been, we'll take that," Larry Atwater remarked.

Atwater is wearing a medical neck collar and has a doctor's appointment Monday morning for further tests. "He does have kind of a slight headache right now," his father said.

Atwater was a star football player and wrestler at Linn-Mar High School. He is a freshman at Coe and the No. 2 quarterback.

It has not been determined how much of the football season Atwater may miss. "I don't even want to guess right now," Larry Atwater said.