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.
Florida State Seminoles
Florida State Athletics began in 1902 when the then Florida State College football teams played three seasons. The 1905 Buckman Act reorganized the existing seven Florida colleges into three institutions, segregated by race and gender. As a result of this reorganization, the coeducational Florida State College was renamed the Florida State College for Women. The Florida State University became a co-ed institution in 1947 with most of the newly enrolled male students back from service in World War II. The "Seminoles" name, chosen by students in a 1947 vote, alludes to Florida's Seminole people who in the early nineteenth century resisted efforts of the United States government to remove them from Florida. Since 1978 the teams have been represented by the symbols Osceola and Renegade. The symbol represents an actual historical figure, Seminole war leader Osceola, whose clothing represents appropriate period dress. The athletic logo, in use since the early 1970s, shows a profile of a shouting Seminole warrior in circle. The model for the logo was Florida State music faculty member Thomas Wright, composer of the Florida State University Fight Song and Victory Song. The use of names and images associated with Seminole history is officially sanctioned by the Seminole Tribe of Florida. Athletic programs resumed and Florida State fielded its first football team in 43 years with FSU facing Stetson on October 18, 1947.