There's this interesting article from 2007 titled "Playground Politics: Lack Of Athletic Skill Often Means Loneliness And Peer Rejection"
https://www.sciencedaily.com/release...1019085951.htm . I was a child who was bad at sports. I got included in leisure time games at boarding school if there was no one else around to make up the numbers . I think this ineptitude at sports often goes with people with autism/autistic traits and/or dyspraxia. Being excluded is essentially a form of peer rejection.
The prowess of sports= better human being angle was further emphasised at my public school with the giving of special school ties if you were in a school sports team.
I had minor teasing at prep school but when I got to public school I was rapidly marked out by my peers as an 'odd one' and treated accordingly. I had no friends there. I had had one person I saw as a friend at prep school. However on hindsight I think that was wishful thinking. He was just someone I got on a little better with.
The only time we saw each each other out of school was just before I went to public school. We never saw each other after that.
Decades later I found him on Twitter. He had developed into someone with an avid liking for women who post 'sexy' photos of themselves and spam twitter with such stuff. He blocked me from his Twitter account. So much for any idea that we were close friends in the past.