Ex-Football Coach Quits Nihon Univ. Board

June 2, 2018

Tokyo- Masato Uchida, former coach of Nihon University's American football team, has resigned as a member of the Japanese university's board over a controversial personal foul by a member of the team, the university said Friday.

Uchida, 62, Wednesday offered to quit the board to take responsibility for causing great trouble for the university, it said.

He resigned as coach of the Nihon University Phoenix last month after a violent hit by one of the team's defensive players injured an opposing quarterback during a match.

Uchida was earlier this week expelled from the Kantoh Collegiate Football Association, a group of college football teams in Tokyo and neighboring prefectures, for ordering the hit.

The university said it set up a third-party panel on Thursday to investigate the cause of the hit and examine the governance of its sports teams.

The panel of seven lawyers plans to report the findings of its investigation in late July.

Kichibee Otsuka, the university's president, reported Uchida's resignation as a board member and the establishment of the investigative panel to the Japan Sports Agency.

Speaking to reporters, Otsuka said that Hidetoshi Tanaka, chairman of the university's board, had apologized to the board for the delay in the university's actions on the issue. Jiji Press