The news of the case roiled the Oregon State campus and made national headlines. Heimlich left the baseball team, saying he did not want to be a distraction. Other than a brief statement in which he said he had taken responsibility for his conduct as a teenager, he declined to comment.

Now, on Saturday, in the interviews with The Times, he spoke about what he called his “unique situation.” Asked about the critics who have demanded that Oregon State refuse to let him rejoin the team, he was succinct:

“I don’t have anything to tell them,” he said. “They can have their opinions of me. Ultimately the people around me know who I am. That is what matters. Everybody else can say what they want.”

The case, he said, is “a delicate family situation,” though he declined to go into the details.

Did he abuse his niece?

Heimlich insisted he did not.

“I always denied anything ever happened,” he said. “Even after I pled guilty, which was a decision me and my parents thought was the best option to move forward as a family. And after that, even when I was going through counseling and treatment, I maintained my innocence the whole time.”

There was no interaction with his niece that he could imagine would have been misinterpreted, he said, adding, “Nothing ever happened, so there is no incident to look back on.”

Heimlich had written an apology to the victim, but he now says he did so because “there were certain requirements when going through counseling that had to be done to finish.”

He suggested the idea that his niece would face aggressive questioning in a trial factored into his decision to plead guilty.