This is sort of a stupid tangent, but isn't it technically sodomy, not rape?
And I'm not really defending anyone here, but I think if you see this guy that was apparently (I wasn't following football in early 90's so don't know) well respected and highly regarded doing something so vile, you would be in such shock you wouldn't believe what you saw. Your mind would try to rationalize that what you saw wasn't really happening. So yeah, you tell someone about it, but you don't believe it, and you hope that if it was really happening, the person in question would get what they deserve.