After Schmitz recovered, his parents pushed him away from contact sports, so he became interested in gymnastics.

[1] After taking up gymnastics he studied under Jeff Hennessy at the University of Southwestern Louisiana while he was in high school.

[4] While still in high school, Schmitz won the U.S. Invitational Championship in trampoline, floor exercise, and vaulting in 1962.

[5] He began attending college at Southern Illinois University Carbondale where he was a member of Sigma Pi fraternity.

[10][5] Schmitz was killed when the plane he was piloting crashed near Morgan City, Louisiana on the night before his twenty-first birthday.