From what I can see, there is also a pretty strong correlation in the UK between the "rank" of a school and the amount of time pupils spend playing sports (particularly rugby) as part of the curriculum - presumably for the perceived leadership/team-building that these sports are believed to promote.
At my high school, and at my college as well, the sports players are generally looked down upon by the 'gifted' or 'AP' students. I don't know how sports players compare to the average student, but the average GPA on our cross country and track teams always shocked me a little. Few of my friends ever got below 3.5, and the sports teams often had averages below 2. The football team (by rumor, I never actually saw the numbers) was the lowest gpa sport in our school.
NB I was using the UK sense of school - high or junior school. People here generally don't refer to universities or colleges as "schools" (apart from "law school").
Possibly because rugby is a good way to get rid of excess energy and constructively channel some aggression as well as the team building and discipline aspects.
I remember reading that it had been suggested that all schools do 1 hour of physical education/excersize before school officially starts, this would help children concentrate.
