GAINESVILLE, Fla. –If someone would have told Steve Mesler that he would be a two-time Olympic bobsled team member, the University of Florida alumnus would have thought it was a joke.  But, Mesler who is training for the 2010 Olympics, spoke to HHP undergraduate students in Dr. Chris Janelle’s sports psychology class and Dr. John Spengler’s legal issues class on July 24 and 25 about his experiences as an Olympian.

Mesler began his talks with the story of how he got into bobsled racing. It all started with unmet goals in his collegiate track and field career as a decathlete. Injury after injury eventually took this athlete out of his sport and looking for a different way to achieve his dream of becoming an Olympian. 

Mesler doesn’t remember how, but after his senior year at UF, he heard the word bobsled and knew he had to give it a chance. A few calls to the U.S. Olympic Committee, and he was on his way to training.

The sport psychology class listened as Mesler compared his mindset in collegiate athletics to his mindset now.

“In college, psychologically I was a mess,” he said.

He discussed different types of athletes such as competitive athletes, insecure athletes and glory hound atheltes and the different ways coaches have to motivate these different personalities.

“Motivation comes and goes but eventually the athlete has to find it,” Mesler said.

One way Mesler does not like to see coaches motivating athletes is using physical punishment for motivation, particularly in small training groups.  He said it instills bad habits in the athlete when coaches use things for punishment they would typically use in a workout anyway. 

He ended his lecture with ideas on how to cope with both disappointment and success and how to find the perfect balance in creating and focusing on goals. 

“Thinking about it (a goal) all the time is not the way to go,” Mesler said. “It just stresses you out.”

Mesler dealt with his goal setting problems since college by finding hobbies, like fly-fishing. He typically spends Sundays, his day of rest, fly-fishing for eight hours. He said it might not be the best for his sport, but it doesn’t matter because he is doing something he enjoys that gets his mind off of his goals for just one day.

With more of a discussion format in Spengler’s class, Mesler focused on topics surrounding legal issues like doping, criteria for making an Olympic team, coach sexual abuse scandals, athlete injuries and code of conducts. He gave several examples of each topic including a contaminated substance scandal that occurred on his team giving him the chance to go to the 2002 Winter Olympics. 

Mesler will spend the next 18 months training for the 2010 Olympic Games in Vancouver, which he said will be his last Olympics.