“Monster” Mike Schultz with his 2018 Paralympic gold and silver medals and his two biggest fans: wife Sara and daughter Lauren. Photo credit: Wayne Davis.
By Jean Doran Matua, Editor
This has been quite a year for Mike Schultz, but it’s far from over yet. Winning world championships in February, then the Paralympics in Korea in March. Being on the front (and back) of boxes of Kellogg’s Frosted Flakes around the country. Press junkets to New York and Los Angeles. Being on Conan O’Brien’s show, and Late Night with Jimmy Fallon. ABC News filming him here at Powder Ridge. May 6 being named “‘Monster’ Mike Schultz Day” in Kimball. And just two weeks ago he won ESPN’s 2018 ESPY award for best male athlete with a disability. The latest in a long string of accolades is being selected grand marshal for Kimball Days next week.
The Schultzes were notified in a text from mayor Tammy Konz. What does the grand marshal do? “They’re the line-leader,” says daughter Lauren who just finished kindergarten. Yes, Mike will be the line-leader in the parade through Kimball Sunday, Aug. 12. The parade starts at 2 p.m.
Even in high school, Mike had set his sights on becoming a professional athlete. He loved racing dirtbikes and snowmobiles, and hoped to make it a career. After he and the love of his life Sara (Becker) graduated from Kimball in 2000, he worked hard to become a professional motorsports racer. It took a few years to get there, but he did it, paying his own way until he got a sponsor.
He was flying high in the snocross circuit when a freak accident while racing just over 10 years ago cost him his left leg, above the knee. Rather than wallow in his injury and potential lost dreams, Mike was up and at it again in weeks. He soon realized that off-the-shelf prosthetic limbs could not perform as he needed them to continue his sports career, so naturally he designed one himself in his garage. That evolved into BioDapt, his company that builds custom prosthetics for wounded veterans, action sports athletes, and amputees. His BioDapt creations have won numerous awards. In the Paralympics in Korea earlier this year, 15 Paralympics athletes from six different countries used Mike’s BioDapt prosthetics, and 11 of them won Paralympics medals.
In those 10 years since his accident, Mike has won gold medals in both the summer and winter XGames: 8 golds and a silver. He’s won countless other medals in these motorsports.
Then he was approached about four years ago about trying snowboard, for the 2018 Paralympics. Mike took on the challenge and, like the others he’s taken on, he rocked it. World competitions and victories paved the way to Paralympic gold and silver. Many of us back in the U.S. watched into the wee hours as he took on the world … and won.