Chalip (1997) initiated the celebrity or hero debate, and challenged future
researchers to attempt to combine elements of celebrity endorsement and hero worship.
He makes the differentiation between celebrities, who are “famous not because of their
heroic status...(but) famous for being famous”; and conversely, heroes who are able to
“represent possibilities that transcend the mundane”. The argument is made that
celebrities have replaced heroes in our society, furthering the earlier statement by Smith
(1973), who claimed that the sport hero was becoming an “endangered species.”