Then the trophy provides the focal point for team photographs that will find homes in media guides and scrap books. Once the moment has passed, the trophy finds a home in a display case in a university where, depending on circumstances, it may join many other similar awards. Or, it may stand alone as the greatest accomplishment the school's athletics department has ever known.

It's really a lot to ask of a chunk of walnut and bit of metal. But then again, an NCAA trophy is so much more than simply the sum of its parts.

When the NCAA trophy was redesigned recently, those spearheading the undertaking kept that in mind. For a variety of reasons, it was time the trophy underwent a makeover to bring it into the next century. For a variety of other reasons, it was important that the trophy retain elements of tradition that have been part of NCAA championships for decades.

A trophy for the times

It is one of the honored rites of sport that the champions come away with a symbol of their victory. The Olympics has its medals, and the NCAA has its trophies.

Trophies are no small matter to the NCAA. For 2001-02, there will be 84 different gold championship trophies, 84 silver trophies and 176 bronze trophies. The Association also will present individual student-athletes with miniature versions of the trophies: 603 gold, 1,726 silver and 5,648 bronze. All trophies are based on one design, while each trophy indicates the championship sport, the year of the competition and the place finish.

Dennis Poppe, NCAA senior director for baseball and football, has worked with the NCAA trophies and related awards for the last 27 years. This year, he led an internal project team that reviewed the trophies and ultimately decided to make some changes. The new trophies will premier at the 2001-02 championships.

"The NCAA trophy is a symbol of the ultimate in intercollegiate athletics," Poppe said. "We first had to decide just how much we wanted to change what had become a recognizable symbol."

The reasons for the redesign were clear, Poppe said.

One was the need to incorporate the new NCAA mark and the Association-wide attempt to be consistent with the display of the mark. The second reason was to improve the trophy's design, making it more contemporary and more streamlined. The third reason was to make the trophies more in keeping with the NCAA of 2001, rather than the NCAA of the 1960s.

"These trophies were first designed in the late 1960s, and there have been few updates since," Poppe said.

The male athlete figures featured on the trophy were nude, which was a sort of tribute to the Greek heritage of sport. When the women's NCAA championships were added in 1982, female figures were added to the women's trophies. But the female figures were depicted in uniforms, while the male figures were still depicted nude.

The NCAA seal also was used at the top of the trophy, and the seal featured a male and female student-athlete. But the athletes depicted were clearly Northern European.

"If you looked at the student-athletes on the trophy, it was obvious that they were not representative of all student-athletes," Poppe said.

A trophy of tradition

While it was clear that there were things about the trophy that needed to change, it also was clear that there was a certain value attached to an NCAA trophy. How much to change and what should stay the same was a matter that the project team considered carefully.

"We felt that there was some equity in our awards that we didn't want to lose. And that equity was built in the silhouette of the trophy," Poppe said. "If someone holds up an NCAA trophy, it's recognizable -- even at a distance. We didn't want to lose that."

And, if you're from a school like the University of California, Los Angeles, you already have a number of NCAA trophies in your display case. The project team members didn't want people from a school like that to feel as though this new trophy somehow didn't belong with the others.

The answer was keeping the silhouette of the trophy while changing many of the components featured on it. Wayne Davis, NCAA graphics manager, followed the project team's lead and designed a new model that ultimately accomplished everything the team sought.

"Wayne did a tremendous job of grasping what the NCAA project team wanted," Poppe said. "And Charles and Sharon Usher of the House of Usher, (the NCAA's official trophy supplier) helped us examine all the options and refine the details."

The trophy retained a similar height and width, but it now features the new NCAA logo. The typeface was made easier to read, and sports logos symbolize each championship, rather than male or female figures.

Charles Usher, vice-president of the House of Usher, has been working with the NCAA on trophies and awards since 1981. His company also assists the NCAA in the logistics -- which can sometimes be quite daunting -- surrounding the distribution of the trophies.

"I think the new trophy is an excellent evolution of the previous design," Usher said. "It's an excellent step into the 21st Century, while still keeping the trophy's tradition intact."

The trophy also carries some new symbolism that's designed to represent student-athlete champions and a place where their accomplishments -- in athletics and in life -- are remembered and touted.

"The front plate is arched, symbolic of the entryway into the NCAA's Hall of Champions in Indianapolis," Davis said. "And the sides of the trophy resemble the buttresses that surround the Hall of Champions. An architectural feature now, buttresses like these were used long ago to support churches, castles and other buildings that possessed heavy walls back before steel was a building material."

Poppe hopes student-athletes and athletics administrators like the new design.

"I think it's a good product now that better symbolizes the NCAA. It's easy to read, it doesn't exclude any of our student-athletes and it possesses the tradition of those trophies before it," he said.

Sounds like something that will keep future champions just a little worried about dropping it.