<p class="ingestion featured-caption">Lydia Hirt left her job in book publishing to dedicate her career to her love of pickleball.Courtesy of Lydia Hirt</p><ul class="summary-list"><li>Lydia Hirt stumbled upon pickleball in 2021, and her love of the sport led to a new career chapter.</li><li>She's visited over 70 pickleball clubs and courts around the world, absorbing different customs.</li></ul><p>When Lydia Hirt says <a target="_blank" class href="https://www.businessinsider.com/small-business-pickleball-owner-entrepreneur-how-to-run-successful-company-2023-10">pickleball</a> changed her life, she means it.</p><p>From the moment she picked up a paddle and stepped onto a court, Hirt was addicted.</p><p>Her first brush with pickleball — a racquet sport similar to doubles tennis but played on a smaller court with different equipment and rules — was on a February 2021 vacation in Florida with her parents and sister.</p><p>Right after, Hirt returned to <a target="_blank" class href="https://www.businessinsider.com/man-behind-zero-bond-club-ticked-off-hamptons-village-2024-8">New York City</a> and immersed herself in the local <a target="_blank" class href="https://www.businessinsider.com/pickleball-business-owner-pivoted-from-tennis-revenue-sales-spiked-2023-10">pickleball</a> community, which was relatively small at the time.</p><p>"It was really hard to find pickleball in the city," she said. "You would lug your net everywhere, you would paint or chalk out temporary lines. The whole thing was a very scrappy community."</p><p>Just as Hirt's love of the sport grew, so did its popularity. <a target="_blank" class href="https://sfia.org/resources/sfias-topline-participation-report-shows-strong-positive-trends-across-multiple-sports-and-fitness-categories-2/">The Sports & Fitness Industry Association</a> reported in February 2024 that pickleball has been the fastest-growing sport in the US every year since 2021.</p><p>As she dedicated her Instagram account to pickleball and, later, became a volunteer ambassador for the sport's governing body in the US, Hirt found her career shifting.</p><p>After 13 years of working at book-publishing company Penguin, she became the chief marketing officer at New York pickball company Citypickle in 2023. In July, she was hired to become a vice president of marketing at high-end health club chain<strong> </strong>Life Time — with a focus on, you guessed it, pickleball.</p><p>In the years since she picked up the sport, Hirt has visited over 70 pickleball clubs and courts around the world. Here, she shares some of the common misconceptions people have about a hobby she loved so much she turned it into a career.</p>