A n Olympic medal was finally a dream come true for Dan Steele, but it certainly wasn’t the way he envisioned it as a child. The former Eastern track and field athlete earned a bronze medal at the 2002 Olympic Winter Games – in the four-man bobsled.

“It’s a dream come true,” Steele said. “It’s always been a dream to go to the Olympics since I was 7 years old, even though I thought I would go in track and field. But this was definitely a dream.”

On Tuesday, Steele was still roaming the streets of Park City, Utah finishing last-minute errands before heading back to his home in Eugene, Ore. Two weeks after winning the medal, he’s still reeling from his performance in Salt Lake City, earning a bronze following a run of 3:07.86.

“It’s still sinking in,” Steele said. “I haven’t seen much of the coverage, so it’s easy to get moved by the highlights they’ve put together. It can be pretty emotional. It’ll probably take another month or two for it to sink in.”

Although Steele wouldn’t trade his bronze medal in the bobsled for anything, it was his dreams of gold in track and field that led him on this quest as an athlete.

Steele was an All-American athlete at Eastern in the 400-intermediate hurdles, finishing first at the national race with a time of 49.79 seconds. He competed as a Panther from 1989-1992 and was inducted into Eastern’s Athletic Hall of Fame in September of 2001.

“I’ve had a very long career in athletics,” Steele said. “My memories at Eastern are some of the best I’ve got. I was a different person – more naive and pretty raw, but I was a part of great teams and had great teammates.”

It may seem as if Steele has bypassed his dreams in track and field, but the Sherrard, Ill. native’s ambitions to qualify for the Olympics as a decathelete that helped lead to his success in the bobsled.

“I never bypassed track and field. I tried it in 1996 and in 2000, and I almost made it,” Steele said of qualifying for the Summer Olympics. “This is only my second season in bobsledding.”