[3][4] His paternal grandparents were Estelle (Bernstein), the daughter of a prominent paper company executive, and Maxwell I. Schultz, a business consultant.

[5][6] His maternal grandparents were Dorothy (Starks), a radiologist who graduated from Stanford Medical School, and Willis Rich, a Stanford ichthyology professor, inventor of the salmon ladder and discoverer of the "home stream theory" that salmon return to the rivers where they were born in order to spawn before they die.

During his junior year in high school, he moved to Ashland, Oregon and switched to Tang Soo Do at Bob Barrow Karate.

After he got in a fight with his brother Dave, he quit Tang Soo Do and tried out for the Ashland High School wrestling team at 130 lbs.

Mark defeated 3 undefeated wrestlers to win state and was named 1978 Palo Alto High School "Athlete of the Year".

In contrast, Mark's brother Dave Schultz had the greatest high school senior year in U.S. history.

Schultz was voted by his peers "College Wrestler of the decade" in the book "The Golden Era of Amateur Wrestling: 1980's" by Reginald Rowe.

Mark was unranked among the top 20 wrestlers in the nation until November 1980 when Schultz defeated #1 ranked Mike DeAnna 8-1 in the finals of the Great Plains Tournament in Lincoln, Nebraska.

He defeated his Great Plains opponent, Iowa Hawkeye senior Mike DeAnna 10-4 in the 1981 NCAA Finals in Princeton, NJ.

A month before the 1982 NCAA's Schultz defeated Banach 10-9 in the Oklahoma vs. Iowa dual meet at Lloyd Noble Arena.

In 1984, Mark and Dave Schultz both won Olympic gold in wrestling events, as did the American twin Banach brothers.

The following year, Mark won the World Championships and faced competitors from all the Eastern bloc countries who had boycotted the 1984 Olympics.

Before the 1988 Olympics, Mark was working as an Assistant Coach at Villanova University and competing for multi-millionaire John E. du Pont's wrestling club, Team Foxcatcher.

In 1987, du Pont threatened Mark by saying "I'm going to ruin your career" in a locker room, in front of wrestler Dan Chaid.

After eight years in retirement from wrestling competition, Schultz became the first Olympic gold medalist to enter the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC).

Four months after Dave's murder, Mark competed in and won an early mixed martial arts event at UFC 9.

[17] In 2022 Schultz left the LDS Church after reading No Man Knows My History by Fawn Brodie which exposed many truth claims as false.

[18] However, Schultz considers the "rank and file members of the church" as some of the most honest, intelligent, hard working, family oriented people he ever met and his experience as the BYU Head Wrestling Coach was a positive one.