Since 1978, Florida State University’s home football games in Tallahassee have begun with a riveting ritual: an Appaloosa horse named Renegade charges onto the field, bearing a rider clad as a Seminole warrior who hurls a flaming spear into the ground at midfield.
A decade ago, ESPN’s SportsNation voted the performance the best NCAA football tradition. Described as a tribute to the Seminole Tribe of Florida, it has continued, because of the tribe’s support, while other sports teams abandon symbols linked to indigenous peoples.
The spear-throwing rider pays tribute to a historic figure who, at his death in 1838, was probably the most famous American Indian of his day.