Ping-Pong Goes Corporate

Kim Gilbert was once among America's most promising Ping-Pong stars. During a memorable run in the late 1980s, the phenom earned the top prize at the California State Open, the Pacific Coast Open, and even the U.S. Closed. Yet in 1992, Gilbert was involved in a broken shoe heel accident—it's a long story—that shattered the radius in her right arm. In the prime of her career, she was forced to put down the paddle.

Nearly two decades later, Gilbert, 46, recently completed what she calls a "miraculous comeback" in the sport that once made her almost semi-famous. While she bides her days as an executive at the Los Angeles marketing firm Dial800, Gilbert spends her evenings coaching white-collar workers with their own dreams of table tennis immortality. And her services don't come cheap—she charges up to $100 an hour for private lessons and $1,000 for out-of-town events. "My goal is to one day have a sustainable business doing this full-time," she says. "I am very serious about this."