Oregon State became the first school to wear turquoise jerseys in honor of Native American Heritage Month through the Nike N7 Fund in 2010. While the jerseys became aesthetically popular soon thereafter, the deeper meaning behind them isn’t common knowledge even nine years later.
Andrew Bowers Jr., who was an intern in the Florida State marketing office at the time, took notice and sent emails to basketball equipment manager Erick Casto and director of marketing Drew Longenecker. They thought the uniforms looked cool, but their interest was piqued because Bowers Jr. — who’s a member of the Seminole Tribe of Florida — detailed the N7 Fund and explained the connection to Native Americans.
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The N7 Fund was created in 2009 by Sam McCracker, who’s now the general manager of N7 programs, with the intention of supporting organizations to provide sport and physical activity programming to children in Native American and Aboriginal communities. In Native American culture, the color turquoise represents harmony, friendship and fellowship.
Given that FSU is a Nike school and has obvious historic ties to America’s indigenous population, it made sense to take part. Casto and Longenecker brought the idea to coach Leonard Hamilton, who gave it the green light. From there, FSU contacted the Seminole Tribe of Florida to get its consent. Once that was handled, the school pitched the idea to Nike.
“Since we’re the only NCAA school allowed to have a Native American mascot because we have the blessing of the Seminole Tribe, they thought it just made sense,” Casto said last month. “A lot of the schools that do it — Oklahoma State does it, New Mexico — they’re more where you would think, traditionally, there are reservations or still Native Americans. Since we’re tied in with the Seminoles, they said it was fine if we did it, too.”
The initial jerseys weren’t impressive. They were basically generic turquoise blanks that were screen-printed and didn’t look much like Florida State’s normal jersey in design. Although the purpose was explained, fans were displeased with the turquoise color.
“You learn this real quick: These people are crazy,” Longenecker said, laughing, via phone last month. “They were like, ‘Blue, blue, blue, blue, blue. That’s Florida. That’s Carolina blue.’ Every single time, I just try and educate them on why we do it. I tell them that it’s a partnership with the Tribe. I tell them the meaning of the color turquoise. We’ve created stuff that we’ve put out there and (FSU basketball sports information director) Chuck (Walsh) puts it all of his notes to send out to the media. We tell TV to explain what it’s for. And I think if Nike pushes it a little bit more and maybe other schools look at doing it, it’ll grow.”
Florida State quickly redesigned and improved the jerseys, and their popularity soared. Bowers Jr. has moved on from Florida State and now is a councilman for the Brighton Reservation of the Seminole Tribe of Florida, near Okeechobee.
Casto and Longenecker are ensuring that the program continues to grow at their alma mater. The Seminoles wore the turquoise jerseys against Saint Francis (Pa.) on Nov. 23, and they’ll wear them again when they take on USF in the Orange Bowl Classic in Sunrise on Saturday.
“It strengthens our relationship with the Tribe, which is never a bad thing,” Casto said. “We love to help them as much as we can. The guys absolutely love wearing the jerseys. It’s probably their favorite jersey, for the most part. For sure, recruits, it’s their favorite ones.
“It helps us, but more than anything, it helps the Tribe and creates money for Nike to go in and help get some initiatives started on reservations. It’s a good thing all around.”
Junior guard RayQuan Evans signed with FSU out of North Idaho College, and he has a stronger and more direct connection to the cause of the N7 Fund than anyone else on the roster. He’s Native American on his mother’s side of the family and is a member of the Crow Tribe.
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Evans grew up in Billings, Mont., but also spent a few years on the Crow Reservation in southern Montana. While he moved around often as a child, he returned to the reservations frequently because many of his family members still reside there.
The Crow Tribe is huge on sports. Football and basketball stand above the rest, and cross country is a close third.
“That’s really the only environment I was around,” Evans said. “And I was introduced to that at a young age on the reservation, as well.”
Evans’ dad, Israel Evans, played two seasons at Montana from 1992-94. His career ended there, but he remained passionate about the sport. That got passed onto RayQuan. He went on to star at Billings’ Skyview High. He averaged 18.2 points, 6.3 rebounds and 3.3 assists as a senior, then went the juco route.
After averaging 18.2 points, 7.4 rebounds and 4.9 assists last season at North Idaho, Evans signed with Florida State. He suffered a torn hamstring early in preseason camp and is working his way back into form, but he still has played in 10 games this season.
Although he’s focused on finding his groove, Evans has taken the time to appreciate Florida State’s involvement with the N7 Fund. While he always had an active childhood, he knows that not everyone else had that luxury. Thus far, the N7 Fund has awarded more than $5.6 million in grants to 243 communities and organizations, and reached an estimated 420,000 children.
“I think it’s great,” Evans said. “I haven’t really been a part of a program that did that. I’ve never been a part of a program that really paid attention to it at all. To see that and to have the whole day where it was just the N7 jerseys and everyone’s wearing blue — I thought that was really cool. It was good to show respect. I loved it. It was amazing.”
While the initial confusion about the jerseys has passed, FSU remains diligent in promoting the message. The school has made it a point to share the explanation on social media and distribute special shirts during home games in which the jersey is worn.
“Even some of the older folks that you would typically think of as hating it initially, they’ve really come around to it,” Longenecker said. “It’s definitely grown in popularity. It basically is a tradition, so to speak.
“Actually, on some of the sites and message boards and all that stuff, people aren’t necessarily defending it but they’re reaching out and explaining why we do it and then people come around and say, ‘Hey, this is great.’ It’s really grown tremendously, but it was hard getting it off the ground.”
FSU has worked to ensure that the N7 Fund is directly benefiting the Seminole Tribe of Florida. Representatives from the tribe attended one of the early turquoise jersey games, but midweek basketball games can make it difficult to attend.
“To be honest, that varies, as well,” Longenecker said. “It’s hard because we’re not anywhere close. It’s not like a football game, where you know when and where it’s happening and it’s easy to travel on a Saturday.”
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The Seminole Tribe of Florida has six reservations: Big Cypress, Brighton, Hollywood, Immokalee, Tampa and Fort Pierce. The closest one to campus is in Tampa, but that’s still nearly four hours away.
That’s why FSU makes sure to wear the jerseys when they make their annual trip to south Florida for the Orange Bowl Classic, which is much closer to all but the Tampa reservation.
If possible, FSU also tries to wear the jersey during a nationally televised home game. Last season, for example, the Seminoles wore the turquoise jerseys when they beat Purdue 73-72 in the ACC-Big Ten Challenge on ESPN.
“It’s growing,” Longenecker said. “Some of the people associated with the Tribe have asked for uniforms and our gear. That shows that they’re very excited, they like it and it’s become something else. As the Florida State basketball program continues to grow, that’s just going to be more and more of a thing to do.”
The charitable piece of the N7 Fund largely runs through Nike. Some schools who participate donate a portion of the gate from the game in which they wear the jersey. Other schools do camps. Any N7 product bought through Nike.com helps raise money. Nike also directly gives away money in scholarships and other forms of grants.
“It can vary from donating money and also donating time,” Longenecker said. “We do different charity outreaches with Native Americans. When we go down to Sunrise and we play there every year in the Orange Bowl Classic — Coach Hamilton’s got some tie-in down there — we try and stop by the reservation. It’s not just one coach or one assistant or one player, and we’ve also gone down during the offseason.”
In the future, Florida State hopes to be able to go to reservations and hold basketball camps of its own. More than anything, though, fans now want to purchase the jerseys. Alas, Nike has limited N7 merchandise and doesn’t sell any team-specific gear. Longenecker has made a promo shirt for the past three to four years to help offset the void, but it’s hard to get vendors to produce the shirt because of the unique color scheme. The requests for jerseys has even trickled down to the players.
“I feel like they’re our best uniforms,” sophomore forward Malik Osborne said last month. “They’re our most sought-after uniforms. I can’t even count how many times people have asked how they can get a jersey or if I can pull any strings to get them a jersey. It’s really what brings that spice to Florida State.
“We have our traditional black, garnet and gold jerseys, but our blue is so unique. Plus, it’s just to celebrate the Native American Heritage Month. We’re Seminoles and we have a good relationship with the Seminole Tribe. This is just pretty much our way to pay homage to them. That’s why they’re so exclusive.”
Evans said he wishes the team could wear the jerseys more often. He’s gotten requests from back home for jerseys and shirts, but there’s nothing much he can do.
Other programs at Florida State have asked Nike about joining the N7 Fund programming, but it’s uncertain if it’ll get approved.
“I don’t know if they’re going to or not,” Longenecker said. “That’s an administrative decision. I would presume that Nike would do a little bit more. We are certainly going to try and push it here on the local level for our vendors. … I would say as the popularity grows and the program continues to win, it can continue to take off.”
(Top photo of Anthony Polite: Don Juan Moore / Getty Images)
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