The sign was held by a face-painted Florida Gators fan at Atlanta’s Georgia Dome just after the game. Four words, stenciled in Gator blue and orange, inadvertently summarized a decade of state history.

“We did it again.”

Odds are, the college-aged guy hoisting that placard during the Gators’ NCAA championship celebration Monday night was only thinking about trophies accumulating in Gainesville over the last 12 months, with the University of Florida winning two college basketball titles and a Bowl Championship Series crown in that span.

But in reality, the sign could mean so much more, because the Sunshine State produces championships the same way it produces citrus – that is, at a rate any other state would envy.

The Gators’ 84-75 win over Ohio State on Monday night delivered the state its 18th team-sport title since 1995, a run that really picked up steam when Florida won the 1996 college football national crown. Pick the sport, college or pro, and the state of Florida probably has boasted a recent champion.

“You take a lot of pride in them,” Florida athletic director Jeremy Foley said Monday night, when asked about the run of Gators’ success in all sports. “But you also enjoy them because it’s hard to do and you don’t know when you’re going to have a chance again.”

Around the Sunshine State, though, that chance seems to come around fairly regularly.

Three Florida teams are currently reigning as marquee-sport champions, with Florida in college football (also over Ohio State three months ago) and college basketball being joined by the NBA’s Miami Heat, who won that franchise’s first crown last June and will eye a repeat when the playoffs open later this month.

Basketball, baseball, football, college sports, even hockey and arena football, you name it, there’s a relatively new championship banner for that sport hanging somewhere in Florida today.

“We’re all trying to find one thing more that might make a difference,” Heat coach Pat Riley said Tuesday. “But Florida, in the last five years in their football program and basketball program, definitely has created a winning culture that’s going to attract a lot of people and a lot of attention and they should be proud of that. It’s hard to do. It’s really hard to do.”

Some of Florida’s most recent championship clubs – the 1997 Florida Marlins, Florida State (1999) and Miami (2001) in college football, and Miami (1999, 2001) again in college baseball – were built for greatness, carrying title expectations with them throughout their seasons.

Others were considerably more surprising, like the 2003 Marlins, who were under .500 in May when the grandfatherly Jack McKeon was summoned to replace fired manager Jeff Torborg. McKeon wound up delivering a World Series title.

And last season’s basketball Gators stunned most preseason prognosticators by winning the crown, but this year’s Florida club carried the burden of repeat pressure with them from day one.

“We set records,” Final Four most outstanding player Corey Brewer said Monday night after finishing the title game with 13 points, eight rebounds and three steals.

“And we make history.”

The Gators add to history, too.

Their latest title lengthened the list of recent championships by state teams, along with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers winning the Super Bowl in 2003, the Tampa Bay Lightning taking the Stanley Cup in 2004, and the Orlando Predators and Tampa Bay Storm combining for five Arena Football titles from 1995 through 2003.

That’s a lot of championship celebrations.

“When you do it, you’ve got to do it for as long as you can,” Riley said. “That’s how you become a dynasty.”

And another one of those parties will be hitting Gainesville soon.

“It may seem like a trivial thing, but it certainly is not to me and it’s not to the people of our state,” Florida Gov. Charlie Crist said. “It is amazing what this sports program has done. It’s phenomenal. I mean, they just keep winning and winning and winning.”

Crist added that with the Gators claiming another title, all Floridians can share in “this proud moment for our state.”

On some level, that might have been difficult for even the state’s fan-in-chief to say.

After all, he is an FSU graduate.