One sentence in a USA Today story concerned a sitting U.S. congressman so much that he wrote Florida State University’s president about it on official House of Representatives letterhead.
Did FSU football star Deion Sanders actually go to class?
“If the President of a major university is not interested in whether or not his students go to school,” U.S. Rep. Romano L. Mazzoli wrote in 1989, “then, pray tell, what are they supposed to be interested in?”
President Bernard F. Sliger replied to the Kentucky Democrat that he was, in fact, interested in the attendance of his school’s students, including his two children; he just wasn’t personally getting involved in the academics of the two-time All-American.
That correspondence is part of the FSU libraries’ special collections and archives. The Tampa Bay Times stumbled on it this offseason while researching FSU’s history in the ACC amidst the ongoing, dueling lawsuits between the Seminoles and their conference. It wasn’t the only interesting but unrelated document we found.
Here are some other fascinating random records, from Nelson Mandela to Derrick Brooks to Burt Reynolds to an NCAA tournament gripe.
Miami’s mascot antics
One of the weirdest moments in FSU-Miami history came in 1989. To counter Osceola and his flaming Seminoles spear, Hurricanes mascot Sebastian the Ibis wore firefighter gear and brought a fire extinguisher. The police did not appreciate the joke; officers grabbed and detained the mascot.
Two months after the incident (and FSU’s two-touchdown win), ‘Canes administrator L. Douglas Johnson told Sliger the costume’s head rendered the visibility of the man inside (John Routh) “somewhat limited.” Johnson thought police intervention was unnecessary.
“In order to prevent this type of situation from occurring in the future, John will…
Source link : https://sports.yahoo.com/u-congressman-once-wrote-fsu-181900664.html
Author : Tampa Bay Times, St. Petersburg, Fla.
Publish date : 2024-07-12 18:19:00
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