Reply #270: Clubs, maybe; but the "sense of community" via sports is a rather exclusive (and closed) community,

[Rabrrrrrr]

and rarely one that fosters good mental health or social adaptation - mostly it sets of a community of hierarchies (based on nothing more valuable than "sports skill") or utterly ludicrous geographical tribalism, and usually both.

When your debate team (and the orchestra and drama guild and chess team and forensics team and etc.) gets daily full page coverage in the local newspaper and the kids playing sports get a token quarter page once a semester, then I'll start thinking about changing my mind. When the community comes out in droves to listen to a debate (or hear a concert or see a play or watch a chess tournament) and the football players have to sell candy bars because so few people come to their games and the school doesn't finance their uniforms, then I'll begin rethinking my position.

This country values crap and crapifies everything of real value, and anyone with their eyes open knows it.