Athlete and celebrity in VC or PE are hired because of the money they can attract from others, which is a type qualification, probably the same reason here.
In fact, just take a look at the "merit-based" hires the administration that they get on 3-hour podcasts to defend makes. Hegeth, Gaetz, Bondi, Noem --truly leaders of their respective fields surely. This is what you get when you have a small group of people only breathing the air of each others' delusions in a windowless room with no natural light.
For the athlete side at least I feel like being elite athlete signals that you're very competitive and drive towards excellence. You'll see competitive industries value things like strong chess players. Basically anything that signals obsessive drive.