NCAA champions will be doing a new dance this year. Instead of "raise the roof," it will be "raise the banner," at least as far as the NCAA's Hall of Champions is concerned.

One of the new benefits of being an NCAA champion is having a team flag raised in the facility's Great Hall, which with its towering 50-foot ceiling serves as a monumental display honoring the winners of the NCAA's 81 championships.

The flags, adorned with the team's logo, hang from atop the Hall's lofty perch for the entire year.

The Hall will conduct two flag-raising ceremonies per year, one in July for the winter-spring champions of the previous year and one in February for the fall titlists. The 1999 fall champions went up for the Hall's grand opening in March. The Hall staff is in the process of informing the winter-spring champions of this summer's festivities.

The reason there will be just two flag-raising opportunities rather than three is because the special lift required to install the flags (a normal "cherry-picker" won't reach) is an expensive rental and must be trucked in from Chicago.

Athletics directors, senior woman administrators, coaches and team members will be invited to the flag-raising ceremonies, which the Hall staff promises to be filled with appropriate pomp and circumstance.

Flags that come down will be returned to the schools for placement in their own "halls."