For years, Steve Mesler has waited to bring an Olympic gold medal to his alma mater.
On Thursday morning, his wait came to an end when the Olympic bobsledder and UF graduate held a gleaming gold medal before a crowd of about 80 at the Florida Gym courts Thursday.
He earned the medal at the 2010 Winter Olympics as a part of the United States bobsled team, which won the gold for the first time in more than 60 years.
“I’m so excited to bring this back here,” Mesler said.
Mesler graduated from UF in 2000 with a degree in exercise and sports sciences.
He came back to UF to talk about his experience as an Olympian and the importance of perseverance and focus.
Reminiscing about his career as a track athlete at UF, Mesler said he was a weak competitor.
When he was on the track, Mesler would always look for little reasons not to keep going.
When he was a track athlete, he had a hard time pushing himself to work toward his goals.
This all changed when he was banned from training in his senior year and started doing his own workout regimen.
Despite an elbow injury and surgery, he was not done being an athlete.
In 2001, he tested his skill at a different sport and tried out for the national bobsled team.
His attitude toward training changed.
“I realized that if something bothered me, I would keep going,” Mesler said.
His friend and former college roommate Lynn Pattishall remembers the day when Mesler showed her the stringent training requirements for Olympic bobsledders.
“He said, ‘Look, I can do all of these, and I can do more than this,’” said Pattishall, now a nurse in the recovery room at Shands at UF. “He made that decision to commit himself to what his goal was.”
Mesler’s commitment led him to a high-speed run in a four-man bobsled in Vancouver’s Winter Olympics, nine years after joining the U.S. bobsled team in 2001.
“I remember going past in the bobsled and hearing ‘U.’ That was what the first part of ‘USA’ sounded like at 90 miles an hour,” Mesler said.
Mesler was not paid to come and speak at UF, said Michele Dye, a spokeswoman for UF’s College of Health and Human Performance. Mesler chose to speak to a crowd after word got out about his Skype session with a UF sport psychology class.
