The Florida State Seminoles are one of the most feared athletic problems in the NCAA. Their mascot is a Seminole Chief (Chief Osceola), and he rides onto the field before every home game on his trustful horse Renegade. One of the things that the student body is known for is doing the tomahawk chop during the whole football game but in reality the war chant was not real and has no association with the Seminole Tribe. The Seminoles are a very well built football team and the whole student Seminole nation supports the football team with all their hearts through thick and thin. One thing that the students of Florida State had to go through was the possible change of their team name and change of their mascot. In early August right before football season, the NCAA committee included Florida State on a list of 18 colleges that used "hostile/abusive" American Indian references. After a large dispute and a lot of national media attention, the NCAA granted a waiver in the first challenge to a new policy, removing Florida State from a list of colleges whose sports teams where said to be "hostile or abusive" towards native american names and images. One main reason Florida State was accepted was that the Seminole Tribe officially sanctioned Florida States use of Seminoles as a nickname and Chief Osceola as a mascot. Max Osceola, Chief and General council President of the Seminole Tribe of Florida stated that it was an "honor" to be associated with the Florida State Seminoles.
This was not enough for the president of Florida State T.K. Wetherell. He knew that the student body knew that Chief Osceola was the mascot of the football team but Wetherell and the history teachers of the University of Florida State wanted students to know more about the origins of their football teams mascot. They wanted them to know that Osceola was a real man, the resistance leader of the Seminole Indians, not just a football mascot.
In March, T.K. Wetherell and his history teachers met with leaders of the Seminole Tribe of Florida to discuss a new course that was going to be inducted into the university's history department. Both sides of the meeting agreed that students should learn the Seminoles' history in larger context of the Southeast, and U.S. policies towards them.
Now the University of Florida State is offering "History of the Seminoles and Southeastern Tribes, Pre-contact to Present." An undergraduate course for up to 45 students. This interaction between the University and the Tribe formed a bond between each other. Now when the students of Florida State are doing the tomahawk chop throughout the duration of the football game they are doing it for a good reason and understand why there is a man riding around on a horse acting as a mascot.
The NCAA should take this as a lesson, that you should not change the name of the team but encourage the organization/university to learn why they are named what they are named. And this will strengthen the bond with the players the coaches and the university, like it did in the case of Florida State. The Mighty Unconquered Seminole Tribe once and always again.
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| Unconquered Statue Located on Florida States Campus |
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| Chief Osceola Performing Pre Game Rituals |
