LORMAN &8212; No one was really expecting Mark Butler to show up for Alcorn&8217;s homecoming game against Prairie View.

Butler, in all honesty, may not have expected it either.

Yet for the occasion, the sophomore defensive end thought it was as good a time as any to make an appearance. After being away from the team, campus, his friends and an entire way of life following a freak accident on campus just after Hurricane Katrina, Butler got into the stadium that day to surprise everyone.

And he may have been surprised, too. Coaches made him captain for the game.

&8220;It was great seeing him, I&8217;m telling you,&8221; defensive coordinator LaTraia Jones said. &8220;I got a little bit on the teary-eyed side.&8221;

It was the first time Butler and many of the coaches and his teammates had a chance to meet face to face in nearly three weeks. The sophomore was with a group of friends near the cafeteria on campus when a large tree fell on him, and he had spent the previous month in hospitalized in Shreveport.

Some had to do a double-take &8212; the Summit native still stood 6-2 but had lost nearly 30 pounds following the ordeal &8212; before giving hugs all around prior to the game.

&8220;It was a lot of fun,&8221; Butler said. &8220;The guys were happy to see me, and I was happy to see the team. You know how you wake up on Christmas morning and want to see what&8217;s under the tree? That&8217;s how it felt. I&8217;m tired of staying in the house. It&8217;s killing me.&8221;

Since then, Butler has stayed with his mom in Tylertown while staying in contact with teammates on the phone. He heard before the day was over how bad the Braves handled Southern, and he grimaced a little bit more over the fact that he couldn&8217;t be there.

But from here on out he may get to them all. He&8217;s surely going to be at the next game when the Braves host Mississippi Valley a week from Saturday.

&8220;He&8217;s doing much better,&8221; Alcorn head coach Johnny Thomas said. &8220;He&8217;s doing very well and is in good spirits. He lost a lot of weight, obviously. He&8217;s doing much better, and we&8217;re glad to have him on campus. It was a happy and sad moment together &8212; sad to see that he wasn&8217;t able to participate but happy to see he&8217;s doing much better.&8221;

Considering the ordeal he went through, he&8217;s happy to have bounced back so quickly.

The accident

Butler said he was with teammates Jayson Williams and Michael Shepherd and another friend in the hours following Hurricane Katrina near the cafeteria on campus. When everyone in the group heard a tree crack overhead, everyone&8217;s first instinct was just to run away.

Butler did. Part of the tree fell on Williams, but Butler took the brunt of it on the back of the head.

And that&8217;s about as much as he remembers.

&8220;I remember hearing it crack,&8221; Butler said. &8220;I don&8217;t remember running. It hit me. I remember I was under the tree bleeding. They said it took all three of them to pick the tree up. I don&8217;t remember any of that.

&8220;I remember when I started talking and when I got into the ambulance. I don&8217;t remember if it hurt or not.&8221;

The ambulance transported him to a hospital in Natchez, but there doctors couldn&8217;t do much for him. They inserted a tube in his trachea to keep his airways open and told assistant coaches Willie McGowan Jr. and Garry Lewis they would have to air-lift Butler to a hospital in Shreveport.

Only one problem.

&8220;They said the winds were too high,&8221; Butler said. &8220;We had drive to Shreveport, and there were the gas lines.&8221;

Butler spent four days in ICU, and there doctors said he had a broken jaw and had fractures of nearly every bone from his top lip up.

Recovery time, however, went faster than anticipated. He was walking around the hospital faster than doctors had planned, and he was able to go home quickly.

Getting back

Right now Butler has metal plates in each cheek and one in his forehead, and doctors are waiting to see how and if his broken nose will heal on its own. He still has blood in his ears, and his top lip remains numb &8212; and may be for the rest of his life.

But for a guy who was looking forward to his first year as a starter on the collegiate level, the injuries will heal. He just wants to get back to the way things were before the accident.

&8220;I was starting at defensive end. I was excited before this happened,&8221; Butler said. &8220;Everything had gone down the drain just like that. I was planning on having a good year, too. I had played in all the games as a freshman.&8221;

It put the coaching staff scrambling to find a replacement for the defensive end spot that week since initial plans had the Braves set to open the season against Grambling that week. Once that got scratched, the Braves used a rotation of freshman Joe Keys and sophomore Bryan Woods at the position.

&8220;He was going to anchor down the right side of our defense,&8221; Jones said. &8220;To lose him in the manner that we did, it was real hard. We felt like we had a good unit as far as our defensive line was concerned. It was going to be the most talented people on the field. When that happened, it was a little hard losing him and losing that type of talent off the field.&8221;

Butler will go to the doctor today to see if he is indeed in the clear following a speedy recovery period. He&8217;d like to go back to school and stayed in touch with some of his professors while he was out, and that would keep him on track as far as graduating.

Yet there&8217;s one question he keeps asking.

&8220;Every time I ask the doctor about coming back to play, they act like they don&8217;t want to talk about it,&8221; Butler said. &8220;If they don&8217;t want me to play, they need to come clean and tell me. I hope I can come back and play. I&8217;m planning on it anyway.&8221;