GAINESVILLE — Painting your body — or at least your torso, neck and head — is the pinnacle of school spirit, according to a group of seniors at North Hall High.

From blackouts, checker board and jersey designs, the seniors at North Hall are showing their Trojan support through paint.

The seniors have been painting their body green, white and black to support their team since the first game of the school year. And now, as the Trojans are undefeated and deep into the playoff season, the body painting is getting serious.

“Last year it kind of started with seniors starting to paint themselves and plus ... me, Will and Zach are all big Georgia fans,” said Mikey Homans, a Trojan senior. “You go to the Georgia games and there are always the guys in the front row that have Georgia Dawgs painted and it’s just one of those things that shows how much school spirit you have if you paint yourself, so we thought that would be a great idea.”

The painted bunch, which has dwindled since the weather has turned colder, were dedicated enough to even paint their bodies after a traffic jam at the White County game, on Oct. 12 in Cleveland, which impeded their on-time arrival.

“Since traffic was so bad at White County, not many people painted,” Homans said. “Will (Story) had the paint with him ... we didn’t get to paint before the game but Will decided to bring the paint inside the game. So about a handful of us just decided to lather on some paint inside the game and that was pretty interesting.”

Getting the paint on their bodies is the first step to the fans’ glory, but they have had a few hits and misses this season. At the start of the football season, the seniors were buying gallons of paint at Pierce Wholesale in Gainesville but have since switched to Crayola washable paint, according to senior Will Story.

“Friday night, every part of our body will be painted,” Story said. “We had a blackout for the Gainesville game and we are doing another blackout (Friday).”

North Hall played Perry in the state Class-AAA quarterfinals on Friday. It’s the farthest the team has gone in state playoffs.

“Two of the last three years we have been to this exact game on Friday night but we’ve never gotten past it,” Story said. “We want to go to the (Georgia) Dome so bad. ... Friday night we are going to look amazing, we are going all out.”

Story also said he knows some people think the senior group looks ridiculous, but they are just trying to show extreme school spirit.

And while the materials have varied over time — sometimes the boys brush on white paint over their green background, and the gallons of paint evolved into squeeze bottles of fingerpaint — one thing stays the same nearly every week: The application process.

“We get the girls to put on the paint for us,” Hulsey said. “We’ll pick a player and put their name and number on our back. Now we have been doing ‘NTH’ and a ‘C’ like for captain kind of thing.”

Cliff McIntire said there were three weeks when the girls weren’t available to apply the body paint, “and we didn’t look as good.”

During this season so far, senior Zach Agerton has spray painted his hair and fellow senior Matt Hulsey tried a mohawk for a game.

After each game, getting the paint off their bodies isn’t quite as difficult as one might think.

“Water will rinse (the paint) right off; you don’t even need soap,” Agerton said.

Homans added there was a time he had to use a toothbrush to scrub the paint out of his belly button. Hulsey added that the paint is hard to remove from elbows and underarms.

“A lot of the parents think we are extremely crazy,” Hulsey said.

But the seniors are just adding to a tradition that began last year and they hope will continue.

"Actually, last year’s seniors did it too, and we are trying to carry on the tradition,” Hulsey said.

Added Homans, “I would love it if the seniors would continue to do this, but I think our football team, with them being so good, they are really helping our spirit, too.”

And while the game between North Hall and Perry at The Brickyard on Friday night had yet to be decided, consider this a tribute to the North Hall seniors and spirit of the Trojan body painters.

“I think we can handle them,” Hulsey said. “The losses that they have had are to teams that are at .500. Seems like they are either on or off — hopefully we’ll pound them pretty good.”

 

Homans agreed, “I knew at the beginning of this season that we were going to have a spectacular team because we were returning basically everybody from last year. I knew we were going to be a senior-led team and this was our year at the state championship.”