Born in the Bronx, Surhoff attended Rye High School in Westchester, New York. After high school he attended the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. In 1983, he played collegiate summer baseball with the Wareham Gatemen of the Cape Cod Baseball League. Surhoff was honored as the 1985 ACC Male Athlete of the Year, and played on the very first (1984) U.S. Olympic baseball team. He was a two-time first team All-American at UNC and his career batting average of .392 was a school record until Dustin Ackley set the mark at .412 in 2009.