Nearly three weeks have passed since the notorious hit and debates about “ame futo,” as the sport is known here, have consumed Japan. The hit was captured on video and has been shown on a seemingly continuous loop in a country where football barely registers. The linebacker has been suspended, the coach of the team from Nihon University has resigned, schools have canceled their games against Nihon, and a national conversation about the inherent dangers of the game and its place in Japanese society is at a full boil.

In a stunning, nationally televised news conference in Tokyo on Tuesday, the linebacker, Taisuke Miyagawa, said his coaches ordered him to “crush” the opposing quarterback or risk being benched. Miyagawa said that, along with other comments his coaches made, made it clear to him that he was to injure the quarterback.

Miyagawa, his hair trimmed in a close buzz cut, apologized for his actions and bowed deeply for 15 seconds. He recalled that after he was taken out of the game, he went into a tent on the sideline and cried. He was told he was weak. “You are too naïve,” Miyagawa recalled his coach telling him. “You felt bad for the opponent, didn’t you?”

“I wasn’t strong enough to say no,” Miyagawa, 20, said during the hourlong news conference. Members of his legal team flanked him. “Though I was ordered by the coaches, I could have refused but went ahead anyway and acted. It was weakness on my part.”

Baseball, soccer and sumo dominate the Japanese sports psyche. American football, which American missionaries brought to Japan in the 1930s, is barely a blip on the sports radar. But this incident has highlighted “power hara” and the obedience to authority and unwavering loyalty to the team that are highly valued in Japan.