I'll tell you something that's interesting to me; I live in Okeechobee County, where the Brighton Seminole Reservation is located. My business occasionally involves Seminoles that come from the reservation. Occasionally, during this time of year, it's obvious that I would talk about college football with them.
You would be surprised at how many that are Miami Hurricane fans. Guys would roll in with Jeep Wranglers painted in orange and green, wearing orange and green Ray Ban sunglasses, talking to me about how they got box seats this year.
So the question comes, of course. I have to ask it, because it was my understanding that the Seminole tribes as a whole monetarily support FSU;
"Why don't you like Florida State?"
"Nah, it's not my kind of school." "Don't like 'em. Don't need 'em."
For every one Seminole that is a FSU fan, four or five are Miami Hurricane fans. And no Gator fans. LOL
Go figure!
That's interesting. Is it a geographic thing, or a cultural thing. Okeechobee is really part of southern Florida, if not south Florida. What if they were from some northern Florida tribes (I guess they still exist). I've never really grasped the history and demographics of tribes in Florida. When I was going up, I was always under the impression that all south Florida Indians were Seminoles, but I think many are Miccosukee, whom I guess, are different.
They used to take us young kids from elementary school on field trips, usually to some place they told us was the Everglades (probably some tourist outpost in western Dade County or something) and told us we were seeing the Seminole Indians. They always had these wood hutches, open to the elements, with a platform and wood or thatched roof cover, no walls, and told us that was where the Indians lived. (They probably left at closing to go back to their houses somewhere else.) They always brought out one of the men in some Indian garb, and told us it was Chief Osceola. It was probably whichever male was going to be the famous chief for that day's batch of tourists. We always read in our elementary school textbooks about the famous Chief Osceola, so we finally got to see him. The original, and real, Chief Osceola, had died, what? a century before? We didn't know.
I'm not even sure we were really seeing Seminoles, I think they took us to see some Miccosukee tourist trap.
Didn't Donna Shalalala cut a deal with one of the Indian casinos to hold presidential debates a while back?
While we're at it, can anyone name the two outstanding Indian defensive backs who started for UM back around '64-'65? I think both were JUCO transfers from Oklahoma.
A bit of trivia.
