Straight A student Sara Kohrogi defies the surfer stereotype
Sara Kohrogi excelled at sports from her earliest years.
“Everything she picked up, she could do it like that,” her mother said.“One of her teachers told me, ‘I’ve never seen a kid this coordinated, ever.”
She played baseball, basketball and golf.
Then, in her freshman year at Mira Costa High School, Kohrogi was diagnosed with scoliosis, or curvature of the spine.
“It forced me to quit land sports, anything that torqued my back,” recalled the now 18-year-old senior while sitting in the kitchen of her family’s Hermosa Beach home, the sun dipping into the ocean behind her.
Her doctor recommended surgery, but her mother objected for fear it would prevent her daughter from ever playing competitive sports again. The doctor suggested swimming, but Kohrogi found it boring.
Then her father, who grew up in Hawaii, suggested surfing. Three years later Kohrogi won the National Scholastic Surfing Association shortboard championship at Trestles. This year she placed third in the NSSA championships, which draws competitors from throughout the country. And as co-captain of the Mira Costa surf team, she helped lead the Mustangs to their seventh consecutive undefeated South Bay Surf League season.
“She came in really good and just improved,” said surf coach Tracy Geller. “She’s grown into a full-time leader on the team.”
Kohrogi’s academic achievements have paralleled her surfing. She is the surf team’s first-ever class valedictorian, coach Geller said. The Hermosa Beach native has focused on school since she was young.
“My mom didn’t have to force me to do my homework,” she said. “School came easily to me. Since third grade, I wanted it to be perfect. It’s like an OCD thing. I wanted straight A’s all my life.”
“I can vouch for that,” said her mother as she cooked dinner.
Kohrogi went to Hermosa View through second grade and Hermosa Valley through eighth. Since then, she said she has “let go of a lot of things.” But as soon as she says that she’s become lazy, her mom interrupts.
“I’m not sure I’d call you that,” she said with a laugh. “I can’t keep up with you.”
As a second semester senior, Kohrogi’s finding it “very hard to go to school.” But, she said, “I’m doing work like I usually do. I’m not completely blowing it off — yet.”
Her classes include AP calculus, AP English and what she said is her hardest class: honors physics. She reluctantly admits that it’s also her favorite.
“As much as I hate it, I really enjoy physics,” she said. “It challenges me the most.”
She also likes its practicality.
“I’ve learned so many things that would be really useful in real life,” she said.
Her favorite non-academic school activity, besides surfing, is student government, which she’s been involved in since she was a sophomore. This year, she’s the senior class treasurer and secretary. The activity has given her friends and an appreciation for her school.
“The fact that you help the school makes you love school more,” she said.
Kohrogi is sponsored by Becker Surf. Her favorite break is Rosecrans.
“It always has a sand bar, usually,” she said, which creates good waves. She also thinks it’s pretty.
“I never get sick of surfing,” she said. “Every spot, every wave, is different. You could go out to the same spot every day and it would be different.”
Another favorite place to surf is Japan, where her parents were born. She went there last October with her family. She likes it because it’s relatively undiscovered as a surf spot and because of her family’s connection to the country. She lived there for a year when she was a baby and came back to the U.S. speaking Japanese. These days, she doesn’t speak it much, though, because she doesn’t have anyone to practice with, she said. Her mother’s father, Akihiro “Ike” Ikuhara, is in the Japanese baseball hall of fame for bringing Japanese and American baseball closer together when he was an assistant to former Dodgers owner Peter O’Malley.
Kohrogi hasn’t decided where to go to college, but knows it will be near waves.
“I did make sure every school I applied to was near a coast,” she said. “It’s a requirement to stay near water.”
That includes Columbia University, the only school she applied to outside of California. During her college research, she learned that people surf on Long Island.
Kohrogi also doesn’t know what she wants to major in, though she wants to get a J.D. and an M.B.A. after college.
“I could become the CEO of a corporation, an entertainment lawyer or start a business,” she said. “To be very successful, it’s important to know the law.”
“My whole goal is to have enough money to travel and surf while I’m still young,” she said. She lists Australia, Tahiti, Indonesia, Hawaii, Japan, Spain and France as destinations. “There are waves everywhere — you’ve just got to find them.” B
