I was told in HS that once I was out of college and had a job, it wouldn't matter how strong or popular someone was, but that how smart they were would determine their standing in life. Both turned out to be pretty blatantly wrong, but if you're told that, and if you're counting on that to be the case, it could be a pretty threatening thing to see that the jock who goes to Gold's Gym at 5 AM, tailors his clothes and pays a lot of money for a haircut actually knows what he's doing when it comes to programming or some other intellectual task.
Since college I've lost fat, put on muscle, started caring about how I look, and gotten married. The change in how I am treated by your stereotypical programmer is like night and day (for the worse), and the change in how I am treated by everyone else is just as severe (for the better).