The cheers started among a group of students at the 5 Points MARTA station and didn’t end until the Chattahoochee Cougars hoisted the state championship trophy on a makeshift stage on the Georgia Dome floor.

In between, thousands of Chattahoochee fans filled the lower bowl of the Dome and took in what one of them called “a once in a lifetime opportunity” to see.

"We sold 5,000 tickets this week, and they just kept coming," said Chattahoochee head coach Terry Crowder. "If we had 10,000 I think we would have sold those. What a great thing for this community, and I’m so happy for them as well."

The Cougars finished the season 15-0, and it couldn’t have made Dan Harris any more ecstatic. Harris’s son Taylor is a sophomore wide receiver and defensive back for the Cougars, and Harris himself has coached in the community and is a member of the board of directors for the football team. His school spirit overflowed into the concourse before the game. As the Chattahoochee fans were lining up to take their seats, Harris revved them up with the telltale “Chattahoochee” chant that was ubiquitous among the fans and students all week long.

“To have the opportunity to be 15-0 is something that just doesn’t happen everyday,” Harris said. “Ask everybody in this Dome, and maybe 1 percent of them will say that they’ve had a chance to be a part of that.”

Harris and his family were part of a group of 40-plus people that convoyed to the Dome from their North Fulton communities.

But that’s nothing compared to what the Greccos and the Ostapowers of Cambridge Subdivision in Johns Creek put together. They were part of a group of 12 families that chartered a bus of their own accord and brought about 55 people to the Dome to cheer on the Cougars. And they don’t even have kids on the team.

“My son is a 10^th grader at the school. He’s here tonight,” said Diane Grecco, who was adorned with gold and blue beads and had blue cougar paws painted on her face.

The group included some people in the neighborhood that had no direct affiliation with the school whatsoever.

“They wanted to come down with us. This is a once in a lifetime opportunity,” Grecco said.

For Bob Ostapower the win was doubly sweet. His sister is a teacher at Starr’s Mill, and the two of them talked trash over text messages the entire week.

“She said something about the blue and black of Starr’s Mill because that’s their colors,” Ostapower said. “I told her she’d definitely be coming home black and blue after playing us.”

For Chattahoochee students, the excitement at the Dome was a natural spillover from the enthusiasm that was drummed up at the school all week. Literally, drummed up.

“Today, the players walked through the school and the band walked down the halls and played,” said Kevin Mallard, a sophomore swimmer at Chattahoochee.

He said that the school had some sort of football related event for the students each day of the week leading up to Friday’s game.

All the effort and noise and enthusiasm didn’t go unnoticed among the players and coaches either.

"When we left the school today there were people on the road as we were driving out that would pull over to the side, get out of their car and start clapping for us," said wide receiver Kane Whitehurst after the game. "That helps when you know you have the community behind you. It means a lot. They were the 12^th man."