Kids pick on anyone who is different. Furthermore, smart kids tend to hang by themselves when placed with age-peers so they are not part of a group and thus are not protected or welcomed by their relations with the kids' friends. Thus high achievement is associated with unpopular kids.
As for sports - a lot of kids play sports and watch it on TV so they can relate to what is going on. That makes it popular.
School and academics ( unlike most sports as they are taught ) requires discipline and attention for most kids. That is painful. Academics is not seen as play - and it is not. If sports were taught as academics - then kids would be at it 8 hours a day - many would not longer "play" at that level of commitment.
Sports were the only connection I felt with my age-peers and it allowed me to make friends with many people whom I otherwise would not have talked to. IMHO, GT kids should be in sports for this very reason.
Its not so cool to be smart as an adult, either. A friend, from China, has a PHD in Physics from MIT. He works as a programmer. he only lists his BS in Math from UT. Another friend has a perfect score on his industry certifications. He does not even list them nor his Masters. He also tones down his vocabulary and sentence detail in interview. Both men do this or they know they won't get hired. I keep my mouth shut at most of my job sites and just do the work they want. Its mostly useless to bring up higher-order issues because people either do not want to fix the real problems or they do not have the focus or horsepower to work through them, even when their current configuration is demonstrably costing them lots and lots of money. Even when you try to help people, they forget and go back to their old ways, and sometimes YOU get blamed for their mistakes.
As for Bill Gates, Microsoft has done more harm to the information age than they have helped it. Bill solved a business problem using a hack (DOS) rather than a full solution ( license VMS ) and it has caused untold misery ever since. Great marketing is all I can say!
But, my favorite joke I tell smart and not-so kids is:
"What do you call a nerd when he is 40?"
"BOSS!"
