I went to Utsunomiya Higashi High School, a newly established five-year old prefectural school located in the southeastern part of Utsunomiya City (at that time, it was a boys’ school with a regular course of study), and commuted to school by bicycle every day. Many of the teachers were graduates of famous universities such as the University of Tokyo and Tokyo University of Education (now the University of Tsukuba), perhaps because it was a newly established school. Although I was in the liberal arts college preparatory course, I remember that I enjoyed the physics classes taught by Mr. Yatabe. I was not very good at math and science (especially physics and chemistry) and managed to get through tests, but I liked and was good at humanities subjects (English, world history, etc.). However, since I started playing tennis in junior high school and continued to belong to the tennis club and play every day, I reviewed intensively before exams and took tests, so my ranking in the grade tests, in which there were about 300 students per grade, was in the 50s at the best of times and in the 130s at the worst of times. At first, I played soft tennis in the club, but my physical education teacher and coach recommended that I switch to hard tennis in my sophomore year. As a result, in my junior year, I won the prefectural qualifying round of the High School Athletic Meet and was able to participate in the National High School Athletic Meet held in Ota City, Gunma Prefecture, as a representative of the prefecture.

高校は宇都宮市の南東部に位置する新設5年目の県立宇都宮東高等学校（当時は普通科で男子校）に進学し、毎日自転車通学をした。教員は新設校ということもあったのか、東京大学や東京教育大学（現筑波大学）などの有名大学出身が多く､文系大学進学コースに所属してはいたものの、物理を担当してくれた矢田部先生の授業が面白かった記憶がある。数学や理科（特に物理、化学）はあまり得意ではなく、何とかテストなどを切り抜けた感じだったが、文系科目（英語や世界史など）が好きで得意だった。しかし、中学校時代から始め、引き続きテニスクラブに所属して毎日プレイしたため、試験前に集中的に復習をしたりしてテストなどを受験したため、一学年300名くらいいた学年テストの成績結果順位は良い時で50位代、悪い時は130位代のレベルであった。当初は軟式テニスでクラブ活動をしていたが、体育教員でコーチであった教師も勧めもあり、2年生になったときに硬式テニスに変更した。その結果、3年次には高校総体県予選で勝ち、群馬県太田市で開催された全国高校総合体育大会に県代表として参加でき、スタジアムでの開会式の雰囲気を味わえたのは素晴らしい経験であったし、1回戦で熊本県代表チームに勝利したことは良き思い出となった。