Today's New York Times brings an article on what should have been a small incident on a minor sport in Japan, but it became an event of national proportions.
Three weeks ago, on an American football game in the college league, a linebacker tackled violently the quarterback of the opposite team after the latter had passed the ball to anther player of his team. The pass was unsuccessful so the game was already stopped when the tackle occurred.
The quarterback left the game injured and is expected to take three weeks to recover. The linebacker got a penalty for unnecessary roughness but remained in the game, which was otherwise uneventful. Images of the tackle circulated virally after the game, whcih prompted reporters to ask the linebacker to explain his actions. He answered his coaches told him to do it, which launched the country into a discussion of the culturally engrained concept of "power hara" in Japanese society consisting of unquestionable obedience to authority and unwavering loyalty to hierarchical elders.
Meanwhile the linebacker has been suspended, the coach resigned, games against the tackler's team have been cancelled, lawyers have been hired, universities have issued strong statements against sport violence, and a vivid discussion about the dangers of the game ensued (a non starter in the US, where football is one of the big sports and plays a disproportionate role at the college level -- many universities would not exist if not for their football programs). In a nationally televised press conference on Tuesday, the 20 year old linebacker bowed in apology for 15 seconds and further detailed that coaches ordered him to "crush" the opposing quarterback and admonished him for feeling bad for the quarterback when he cried shortly after he was taken out of the game.
Let's wait for further developments.
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