:D I guess I thought of BBT because Leonard's mother is a behavioural psychiatrist who wrote a book and a Powerpoint presentation about her sex life (which is mostly abstinent).

I thought about this some more and maybe it's not so much that Ray's either a nerd-jock or a pure nerd so much as he's a grown up version of the "boy hero" archetype. You know - clear-browed, responsible, enthusiastic, focusing on the mission at hand, and basically good-hearted.