From my experience in high school, if the football team is winning, the players end up being treated nearly as gods by the students, teachers, coaches and even the community at large.
To be fair, that’s an awful lot of pressure to put on a teenaged boy and many can’t handle it. Couple that with all the crazy puberty stuff going on, girls, peer pressure, testosterone, etc. and things can get out of hand.
Now throw in coaches who are basically teachers working extra hours, and teachers aren’t exactly paragons of discipline during the main workday.
I remember seeing some things in high school that were much milder, but I remember the disposition of the perpetrators. I can easily see how the right personalities combined with lax oversight by coaches would be very bad. I can also see how it could be swept under the rug and allowed to fester in that environment.
Not on a team with annual national title hopes and traditions. Those guys are professionals who sometimes work extra hours in the classroom.