Osceola and Renegade
The Osceola and Renegade mascots were conceived by Bill Durham, a Tallahassee businessman and Florida State alumnus. He came up with the concept of a horseback-riding Seminole mascot as early as 1962, when he was voted into the school's homecoming court. He returned to the idea in 1977, and won the support of Ann Bowden, wife of head football coach Bobby Bowden, who helped make the idea a reality. Durham contacted the Seminole Tribe of Florida about the project, and chairman Howard Tommie had tribe members make the first costume for Osceola. Durham provided the horse, while Bowden helped acquire the various permits necessary to allow a horse onto the field.
UC Santa Cruz Banana Slugs
UCSC's mascot is the banana slug (specifically, "Ariolimax dolichophallus").
In 1974 the UCSC club soccer team chose the mascot the "Banana Slugs". UCSC had no formal team sports at the time, therefore they had no mascot. Three team members, Larry DeGhetaldi, Fred Bicknell, Sven Steinmo and their roommate, Richard Hedges, chose to name the team the Banana Slugs before an All Cal tournament. They felt that UCSC should have a mascot too. The team's unusual name was noted by the San Jose Mercury News after the team suffered a humiliating defeat against the San Jose State Spartans. Several years later, when the club basketball team became more formalized (with a coach and expanded schedule), the athletic director at the time, Terry Warner, informed the team that they needed to have a mascot and that it had been chosen to be the Sea Lions. The team summarily rejected that name, claiming to not need any mascot. As such, their uniforms simply said "UCSC" on them. In 1981, when the university began more formally participating in NCAA intercollegiate sports, the then-chancellor and some student athletes declared the mascot to be the sea lions. Most students disliked the new mascot and offered an alternative mascot, the banana slug. In 1986, students voted via referendum to declare the banana slug the official mascot of UCSC – a vote the chancellor refused to honor, arguing that only athletes should choose the mascot. When a poll of athletes showed that they, too, wanted to be Slugs, the chancellor relented.