NCAA championships are packed with memorable moments: The underdog pulls out a victory; the injured player leads the team to the national title; the walk-on makes a last-second shot.

Capturing those moments visually is the work of Rich Clarkson and Associates, a photography and publishing firm in Denver that administers NCAA Photos.

Led by Rich Clarkson, a gifted and multidimensional photographer who has been a regular contributor to Sports Illustrated, Time, Life and National Geographic for several decades, NCAA Photos provides photography for all 81 NCAA championships -- all divisions, both men's and women's -- in 22 sports. From basketball and gymnastics to water polo, wrestling and everything in between, NCAA Photos captures the action on film, digitizes it and archives it.

When you see a photo of an NCAA championship, whether in The NCAA News, in an NCAA member school's program or in a major magazine, it is likely to be from NCAA Photos.

There is never an off-season at NCAA Photos. The championships are staffed by one of the firm's four full-time photographers -- including Clarkson himself -- or the coverage is provided by one of the firm's experienced freelance photographers.

Once the photos are taken, the Clarkson staff archives them and makes them available to the NCAA. As a service to the Association, the firm also makes the images available to NCAA member schools, parents and student-athletes at cost. Clarkson also sells NCAA championships photos to magazines, newspapers and other interested parties, with a royalty paid in turn to the Association.

"We're really a clearinghouse for anyone looking for pictures of college sports," said Clarkson.

Clarkson and Associates also works with several member conferences. The firm recently produced unique CD-ROM press kits for the Big 12, the Mountain West and Western Athletic Conferences.

"The beauty of the CD-ROM approach is that a newspaper, magazine or television station can take the computer file and use it instantly, without having to scan anything," Clarkson said.

It's a digital world

In fact, many NCAA Photos projects and functions are made possible with digital technology, which affects everything from the photography itself, to printing, to archiving, to shipping. Clarkson has taken full advantage of the new technology and estimates that his firm has 30,000 to 40,000 images digitized, captioned and archived, including the many photographs he has taken over the years. Thousands more images are in the firm's collection but have not yet been captioned and cross-referenced.

The firm also has undertaken the formidable task of digitally archiving and referencing boxes and boxes of forgotten NCAA photos discovered when the Association moved to Indianapolis last summer. The project will take a couple of years to complete, but once those old images are digitized and catalogued, they will be usable for many projects.

While the archiving benefits of digital technology have been around for some time now, most photography has been done in the traditional way. In fact, most NCAA Photos photographs are still shot with high-speed, motorized cameras using traditional film. But a new era is unquestionably at hand.

"The latest development in photography has been the arrival of really practical digital cameras," Clarkson said. "The Nikon D-1 is a leap ahead. It produces pictures that are absolutely wonderful, and it does so totally digitally on chips that can be re-used.

"The ramifications of that are enormous. I predict that within the next few years every newspaper in America will be closing down its darkrooms."

Clarkson also points to the IBM chip in the D-1 as a significant development. "You can get about 500 medium-resolution pictures all on the same chip, which is a tremendous advancement." Compare that with the 10 or so that could be stored on expensive digital cameras sold to the general public two or three years ago.

No more darkrooms

Major newspapers started using expensive digital cameras about five years ago, but Clarkson said technology has advanced to bring digital cameras within the budget of smaller organizations with less specialized needs. That includes colleges and universities.

"When you consider the costs of film, processing and darkroom expenses, the digital camera can pay for itself in no time at a daily or a weekly (newspaper)," he said. "But now a lot of schools are looking at digital technology, and they see that as a great economy of dollars and of time."

Major sports magazines have been slow to adopt a totally digital approach, Clarkson said, partially because they still want the ability to enlarge photos across a two-page spread, something better handled with traditional film.

"Traditional film still has more ability in some situations, but that's changing so fast," he said. "It's changed so fast even just this year. Last year at the Men's Final Four, I'd say one-third of newspapers and wire services were shooting totally digitally."

The technology advance is happening so quickly that Clarkson predicts the NCAA will not need to provide Final Four photographers with darkrooms or areas for film processing in about two years.

Delivery of photos to clients is changing, as well. Clarkson estimates that 40 percent of the firm's photos are now delivered to clients either digitally on the Internet or in a computer-to-computer arrangement. NCAA Photos has a World Wide Web site (ncaaphotos.com) for customers with a college sports photography need.

As for the future, Clarkson thinks it will include dual publishing of many products -- both on the Internet and on paper. And while it's impossible to predict what type of storage and delivery systems will be used, digital images -- such as those in the NCAA Photos archives -- are easily manipulated and adapted to new technology.

Whatever the future brings, NCAA Photos will be ready -- cameras in tow -- to capture the many memorable moments of NCAA championships.