Cool Kid Sara Rothrock represents SoCal on outrigger team, volunteers at hospital

NEWPORT BEACH, Calif. (KABC) -- This Week's ABC7 Cool Kid is 17-year-old Sara Rothrock. She is very busy high school junior who volunteers at a local hospital, competes on a Junior Women's outrigger team, and the list goes on.

If she's not at her biology class or with the Make-A-Wish club at Corona Del Mar High School, you can find her volunteering at Hoag Hospital where she delivers books and magazines to patients.

"At first it was very interesting because you can see all these people really sad and you want to help them somehow," she said. "So it was always a really great feeling helping them out in like the smallest way possible just by giving a book. You don't know how much happier it can make people."

Even with all that, this accomplished young woman was recently chosen as one of the seven girls in Southern California to represent the North American Junior Women's Outrigger team. They'll compete in the World Championship in Tahiti this summer.

"It's really exciting," she said. "It's a lot of hard work. I'm constantly working out with all my teammates."

"So it is an interesting sport," said Malia Hohl of The Newport Aquatic Center. "You are either born into it or you can come out and try it because you heard about it and you saw it. It definitely takes a special person to learn and adapt quickly and Sara definitely did that."

Sara's coach says she joined the team three years ago, but her dedication and training quickly made her a worthy competitor.

"My second race I ever did was we paddled all the way to Catalina and it took us 6 hours," she said. "It was really fun."

"We can always count on her as coaches and I think a lot of the girls and boys arrested on the team definitely look up to her and all the things she has ever done."

Sara says she's focused on the world championship race, but in college she hopes to study advanced science.