Callan Dawson was grabbing his pickleball gear from the bed of his pickup truck in an overflow parking lot about a block from his family’s racquetball club when a woman approached him. “What are you doing over here?” asked Rosie Eckberg, a member at Bobby Riggs Racket and Paddle, the tennis-turned-pickleball facility that Dawson’s parents own. “I thought you’d have VIP parking.” Dawson smiled. He isn’t just part of what some consider the First Family of Pickleball. Less than three years after he quit his firefighting job to focus on the sport with the quirky name, Dawson, 31, has become one of the faces of professional pickleball, a burgeoning industry with three leagues, dozens of touring players and ballooning resources. “A lot of my friends thought I was crazy,” Dawson said. “Now they’re hitting me up for court time.” Read more at the link in our bio. 📸: @peggypeattie / Special to The Chronicle