>This presupposes both an interest in religion and organized sports.

Sorta but not really. Lots of people just fake it for the community aspects.

With this mindset you likely wouldn’t live in the south anyway as you’d end up miserable. Just like a southerner living in CA.

At least w.r.t. the latter point, you shouldn't need to be interested in sports to be interested in your kid's sporting events. Spoiler: nobody likes t-ball, but they do like their kids enough to go to the t-ball games anyways.