met Rip Hamilton who used to play for the Detroit Pistons and Terrell Owens on the streets in Miami Beach once. That’s about it for “celebrity” encounters but I don’t really view either as a celebrity. To me they are well known athletes to people that follow sports, but very few athletes transcend sports and reach celebrity status imo. You’re talking maybe a handful of star NBA players (Magic, Bird, Jordan, LeBron), handful of superstar NFL QB’s (Brady, Manning, Mahomes), Tiger Woods, and handful of soccer players (Messi, Ronaldo).
When I think of the word celebrity I tend to think a celebrity is someone that is massively famous around the globe and usually in music or film, someone like Taylor Swift, Michael Jordan, Tom Brady, Drake, Leo DiCaprio, Brad Pitt, Eminem, Kanye West, Mike Tyson, Denzel Washington, Beyoncé, Rihanna, Dave Chappelle, Tiger Woods, Jay-Z, Will Smith, Justin Bieber, The Rock. People like that.