Since the beginning of organized sports in our public school systems athletes have been held in high regard, they were the "alphas". The fact that this is the case in a small town has nothing to do with the situation, I would venture to say that things like this happen in larger populaces as well. These boys could very well have not been football players and done the same thing. There is a real problem in the mindsets of our youth today. We just had a similar story here on sheepdog where 4 boys ran a train and were laughing about it in school and the girl killed herself.
People will blame the parents but as someone with a 20 y/o son, kids are going to make bad decisions. We as a society need to figure out what it is that makes our kids think this type of behavior is acceptable. What makes it okay to treat another human being like this. Truly a sad sad story, for the girl and for all of us, we are failing as a society.