Roth Richards, who played competitive tennis as a kid and was an All-Ivy soccer star during college, was wearing flip-flops the first time she gave pickleball a try on a makeshift court. She since has gone on to compete with the Puerto Rico team that won gold at the Pickleball World Cup in Lima, Peru, last October. The event drew teams from three dozen countries, including the United States, which Puerto Rico beat in the semifinals. 

“This sport is perfect for me,” Roth Richards says. “I have great hand-eye coordination and very good short bursting speed. And I’m able to stay calm, stay positive.” More than twice the age of some of the other women and men on the eight-member team, she hopes to compete in the World Cup this October in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.

Meanwhile, in late March, Roth Richards and Ana Paula Morales won the Puerto Rico Pickleball Association’s championship tournament. “Being older gives her mental strength,” says Morales, 29, who has known Roth Richards for a year. “She is so focused, especially before tournaments. Since I met her my pickleball game has improved a lot. If it wasn’t for her, I wouldn’t practice so much.”

Although pickleball is her passion, Roth Richards, an attorney, also works as VP and general counsel of Global Rescue. Her husband, Dan Richards, Tu’03, founded the travel protection company, which offers evacuation and other travel services, in 2004, shortly before they married. In 2021 the family—including Samantha, now 11, and Jackson, 9—moved to Dorado, Puerto Rico, near the company’s Caribbean operations center.

“Sports is what brings people together,” Roth Richards says. “Pickleball is the way I’ve made the most connections with local Puerto Ricans.”