Season: After opening 1975 with a 7-6 loss to Grissom and a 14-14 tie with Decatur, Athens finished the regular season with eight straight wins and then won four decisive playoff victories to capture the 3A state championship. In a 1985 poll of sportswriters conducted by the Birmingham Post-Herald, the 12-1-1 Athens team was ranked as the third greatest in Alabama since 1950.

Coach: Larry McCoy, a native of Tuscaloosa and a disciple of Alabama’s Paul “Bear” Bryant, joined Ferman Elmore’s Athens staff in 1963 and became head coach in 1966. In 10 years at the helm, McCoy led the Golden Eagles to a 70-32-3 record, including nine winning seasons.

Tradition: The Golden Eagles began playing football in 1936, and after several good teams under coaches Melvin “Snake” Vines and Hal Self, took a major step forward under Elmore. In 1954, he led Athens to a 9-0-1 season, earning the school’s first Tennessee Valley Conference championship and a No. 2 ranking in the final state poll from the Birmingham Post-Herald. In 1972, McCoy produced the school’s first perfect regular season (10-0) before losing in the 3A semi-finals. Athens won a 3A co-championship under Ronnie Phillips in 1976 and a 5A title under Allen Creasy in 2006.

Memorable Event: For the spring jamboree of 1975, Bryant flew in from Tuscaloosa to dedicate the gleaming new Athens Stadium, which seemed like a palace compared to the Depression-era concrete relic being discarded across town. It was a night people would still be talking about a half century later.

Team: Quarterback Jeff Johnson directed a powerful offense that included three backs who would sign Division 1 scholarships. Freddie Smith, the 3A Player of the Year, rambled for 2,156 yards and 37 touchdowns and also was a force at linebacker. He would be remembered as one of the greatest runners in North Alabama history. The additional threat posed by sophomores Adolph Cosby and Steve Parker also bedeviled defenses. The large and dominating offensive line was anchored by John Marshall, Thomas Woodroof and Bill Ming. The defense, which held eight opponents to a touchdown or less, was smothering and opportunistic, featuring playmakers including Tom Honeycutt, Greg Haynes, Bill Wood and Ollie McGee.

Average Margin: Many of the games turned into blowouts, as Athens outscored the opposition by 37.3-11.0.

Rivalry: No game mattered more for 3A Athens than the annual grudge match against 4A powerhouse Decatur. The Red Raiders from the bigger town on the other side of the Tennessee River commanded a large lead in the decades-old series—especially in the glory days of coach Shorty Ogle—but the games were usually very competitive, and a yardstick for both programs.

Big Win: Perennial power Colbert County gave Athens a scare in October, jumping out to a 14-0 lead in the first quarter. It would take four Freddie Smith touchdowns and several big plays on defense and special teams to keep the Golden Eagles streaking toward the playoffs with a hard-fought 27-20 victory.

News: In 1975, Saigon fell to the North Vietnamese communists, President Gerald Ford survived two assassination attempts, Cambodia seized the American merchant ship Mayaguez, the Apollo-Soyuz docking in space reflected a slight thaw in the Cold War, and Americans flocked to theaters to see JAWS, considered the first summer blockbuster.

Music: Hits included “Philadelphia Freedom” (Elton John), “Rhinestone Cowboy” (Glen Campbell), “Fame,” (David Bowie), “One of These Nights” (Eagles), “The Hustle” (Van McCoy and the Soul City Symphony), and “Kung Fu Fighting” (Carl Douglas).

Sign of the Times: It would be another year before Atlanta Superstation WTBS became the first nationally distributed basic cable channel and four years before the birth of ESPN, but a new era in television was dawning. A small audience of local cable subscribers watched the weekly Larry McCoy Show.

Clutch Performance: In the comeback against Colbert County, with Athens trailing by two touchdowns, Greg Young made two big plays within a matter of five snaps: recovering a fumble at the Indians’ 9 yardline and then catching a two-point conversion pass from quarterback Jeff Johnson.

Trophy: After routing Cullman (54-28), Haleyville (49-6) and Fairfield (34-7) in the first three rounds of the playoffs, Athens hosted an Andalusia powerhouse that had not lost a regular season game in three years. A capacity crowd filled the new stadium, and Coach Don Sharpe’s Bulldogs gave Athens a stern test. It was 7-7 at the half, but the Golden Eagles took control in the third quarter, claiming the state championship with a convincing 35-15 victory.

Ink: “What can you say about the Athens Golden Eagles?” wrote Bob Mayes of The Huntsville Times, toward the end of the regular season, “Awesome. Devastating. Overpowering…And perhaps…Unbeatable.” After watching the second-round dismantling of Haleyville, the Huntsville News’ Steve Fox wrote: “Four-A high school football playoff survivors count your blessings. You won’t have to face the Athens Golden Eagles.”