Background
The native of Japan started to play badminton when he was 11. Morikawa had
an intensive training in high school, and led the team to third place in
the All Tokyo High School Championships out of more than 200 teams. Since
then, he has enjoyed playing recreational and competitive badminton and
participating in local badminton tournaments in Tokyo. After he moved to
California in 1999 to pursue the both academics and career in journalism,
he found how important badminton was for his life. Badminton has given him
lots of opportunities to meet new friends and to see various sites in the
United States. The appreciation towards badminton has made him believe that
this fine sport could be a tool for people to connect each other. He started
volunteering to teach badminton at schools he attended in order to give
the students the sense of joy and potential world that they could multiply
by hitting and catching the bird on the court. He currently lives in San
Francisco completing the Bachelor of Arts in journalism at San Francisco
State University and working for Japanese bilingual daily newspaper Nichi
Bei Times as a staff reporter.
