SMG Player of the Year: Atwater overcomes physical, emotional pain to excel

MARION - Like so many other football players, Mark Atwater tapes his wrists before games and writes inspirational messages on them. Those messages were always the same this fall.

“12-1-10” was one. That's the date his grandmother passed away.

Then there was “Dad.”

It was two weeks before football season began when Larry Atwater was diagnosed with lymphoma. The longtime well-respected Coe College defensive coordinator had gone to the doctor to get a hernia checked out.

“One of the toughest questions I'll ever answer,” Mark Atwater said, when asked what it was like to play his senior season for the Linn-Mar Lions knowing his father was battling cancer. “When he first told me ... it was just a whirlwind. But he lives his life. It has never gotten to him. He is the strongest man I know.”

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“With me, the glass is half full,” Larry Atwater said. “I would always tell him ‘It's going to be all right, Mark. It's going to be all right.'”

These Atwaters are strong, tough and good people. Larry never missed practices or games, despite the toll chemotherapy takes on the body. He's doing well, about to finish his last treatment.

Mark soldiered through, too, leading Linn-Mar to a 9-0 regular season with typical outstanding play at the atypical position combination of quarterback and linebacker. He accounted for over 2,500 yards and 37 touchdowns passing and rushing, finishing as Linn-Mar's fourth-leading tackler.

His school's all-time leader in tackles and touchdown passes, Atwater is honored as Source Media Group's prep football player of the year.

“He's got a great sense of the game, be it defensively or offensively,” Larry Atwater said. “That can take an individual farther. Guys can just feel the game, they have football smarts, football savvy. He has kind of always had that, from the first day of flag football.”

“Just a really good football player who enjoys playing football. He was committed to our program,” said Linn-Mar Coach Bob Forsyth. “Such a tough, tough kid. He played with a lot of pain this season.”

A lot of it emotional, some of it physical. The same week he found out about his father, Mark went for a preseason physical examination and discovered he also had a hernia.

Doctors wanted to perform surgery, but missing time wasn't an option, so he played the entire season, 11 games, with the condition. He said knowing what his father was dealing with helped him do it.

“They said I'd probably miss Jeff and Kennedy, the first two games,” Mark said. “I just said ‘I can't do that.' It took awhile to learn how to manage it, manage the pain.

“But I'm blessed I can play football. My dad being sick put everything into perspective for me. Having a hernia is nothing.”

Mark had surgery to repair his hernia after the season, one that ended disappointingly with a second-round loss to Cedar Rapids Washington. Now it's older brother, Jordan, a sophomore defensive back at Coe, who is facing surgery for a sports hernia.

Incredible.

Meanwhile, it's wrestling season and recruiting season for Mark. Things with the latter are kind of at a standstill right now, as Division I-AA and Division II programs generally wait to extend offers until major college programs are done.

Atwater sees himself playing defense at the next level, whether it's linebacker or safety. Coe is an option as well, where he could end up being a quarterback.

“If schools are looking for a ‘football player,' he's a ‘football player,'” Forsyth said. “I tell every coach I talk to that he'll be successful no matter what avenue he chooses. We could have asked him to play right guard for us this year, and you'd have picked him to the all-conference team. He's a winner. He'll help you win.”

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