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CHAPEL HILL — You didn’t have to watch the game on TV, or check SportsCenter for the highlights, or even read your morning newspaper to know which team won.

All you had to do Monday night was to look up and down Franklin Street.

The sight — the students — told the story.

North Carolina had won the 2009 NCAA men’s basketball championship.

Franklin became a street of screams.

“Wooo-wee!” said Erica Williams, 24, a senior from Fayetteville. “It’s about time!”

At 11:48 p.m., joyous students spilled out of bars and restaurants along the  street to celebrate the Tar Heels’ 89-72 win over Michigan State.

They cheered, they hugged, they jumped for joy. In the process, they carried on a tradition that reached back more than 50 years.

“There we go Tar Heels!” shouted Phillip Gore, an 18-year-old freshman from New London. “I’m going to call everybody I know that likes Duke and tell them that we won.”

As the postgame minutes passed, the crowd grew, quickly taking over the street that bounds the north side of the UNC campus.

Later, more students arrived from the Dean Dome, where thousands had watched the game on a large projection screen and the arena’s video boards.

Still later, fans from out of town began to arrive to be a part of the celebration.

“The Tar Heels are the greatest thing that ever happened to mankind,” said Jeffery Houston, an 18-year-old from Compton, Calif. “This feels like a once-in-a-lifetime experience.”

By midnight, police estimated the crowd in the thousands, and it continued to grow. Earlier, officers had estimated that a Tar Heel win could produce as many as 60,000 revelers.

About 300 police, some from nearby towns, tried to maintain order. They had no idea when the celebration might end.

“It’s a happy crowd and people are celebrating a win,” said Chapel Hill police spokesman Kevin Gunter. “We anticipate being here until 3 p.m. ”

Students had begun to gather in their favorite spots by early afternoon for a game that didn’t tip off until 9:21 p.m.

By midnight, many showed the wear and tear of too much to drink. But that didn’t keep them from celebrating
another basketball championship.

Gatherings on Franklin date back at least to Dec. 18, 1947, when a fire broke out at the University Service Plants in the street’s 100 block.

As several hundred students watched the blaze, they began chanting, “Our town is red hot. Beat Duke.”

But historians say the first spontaneous celebration came in 1957, when the men’s basketball team won the national championship by defeating favored Kansas after three overtimes.

“It is clear that a new tradition had been established,” Samuel Magill, of the Chapel Hill Historical Society, once wrote about that night. “But as the years passed new wrinkles were added to those events.”

Over the years, students would set bonfires, paint one another blue and climb trees and poles to get a better view.

In 1977, after a basketball win over Davidson, students draped trees in toilet paper.

After a Final Four game in 1981, fans brought Carolina blue paint to the celebration. Streets, parking meters, students, even a car turned blue. Paint sales to students are now banned for days before a big game.

In 2001, revelers turned over a car. Now, police want the streets cleared of vehicles well before game time.

In 2005, when the Tar Heels won the last NCAA basketball championship, 45,000 fans joined in the celebration. Police arrested 15 on charges of assault, disorderly conduct and setting bonfires.

That night, police spotted students carrying a couch down the middle of the street. They planned to throw it on a fire. Police confiscated it.

By midnight, the 2009 celebration remained under control.

Contact Donald W. Patterson at 373-7027 or don.patterson@news-record.com