It helps develop team working skills, working with others in a variety of settings is important for both school and work.
Sports also helps develop handling stress, pressure and disappointment. Working under stress and pressure will be dealt with in both our personal and public lives. Stress and pressure can come in several forms, working on relationships can be stressful, working on important files with looming deadlines at work can be stressful. Sports can help athletes develop ways of dealing with stress and working under pressure.
Competing is often a high stress, high pressure environment and learning to deal with those external forces is very helpful. Dealing with disappointment and loss at competitions is also a useful skill developed through sport.