Why Is Florida State Football Wearing Blue - T-Tees - Your Answers Await, Life's Questions Unraveled

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.

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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.”

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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.

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.

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“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.”