They are society's gladiators. Their job is to enrich the coffers of schools, towns, cities and corporations by showing their physical prowess to the adoring throngs. Once that physical prowess is gone, or even suspect, their value is stripped from them. If they don't have anything else to fall back on, either intellect or privileged social class, then they are truly eunuchs. We Americans emphasize this in the way we conspire to both threaten and cajole these human trophies.
Jocks value their power and masculinity because it means survival.
Unfortunately, queers, whether nerds, weirdos, geeks or homosexuals, are lower on the totem pole than those who are sociopathically holding on to their imagined masculinity. People who fear for their masculinity pick on the queers because society encourages them to. It doesn't have to be by beating queers up or taking their lunch money, although that happens often enough. It can be in the snide forms of psychic oppression exhibited in a comment or joke. When queers go to the party, as in the movie Animal House , they all get relegated to the loser's corner.