In 1952, a University of Kansas freshman flew to Seattle to photograph what turned out to be an NCAA championship victory for his school's basketball team.

As Kansas celebrated its win over St. John's University (New York), Rich Clarkson found himself the only press photographer present at the postgame trophy presentation -- the other four photographers already had departed to meet deadlines.

Thus, he shot the only photos of the NCAA's newly named first executive director, Walter Byers, presenting the trophy to Jayhawks coach Forrest "Phog" Allen -- who kissed it -- and of Kansas center Clyde Lovellette hoisting the trophy high in the air in triumph.

As Clarkson puts it, that 1952 event was "a little different from today."

He will be working again this year in St. Louis, but this time, he'll be shoulder to shoulder with a multitude of photojournalists who will document every moment of the event.

However, this year's tournament may prove as memorable for Clarkson as that first one all those years ago, because it represents a milestone: He will be photographing his 50th Final Four.

That Kansas freshman already had begun making a reputation for himself by the time he arrived in Seattle for his first NCAA tournament, and it wasn't long before his photos began appearing in national publications, most notably Sports Illustrated.

Though he ultimately produced widely published photos at other major sporting events such as the Olympic Games, and later served as director of photography for National Geographic magazine, Clarkson has returned time and time again to the action at the Final Four.

Fans attending this year's event will have an opportunity to see the fruits of that labor, as a portfolio of Clarkson photos will be displayed throughout the weekend on the giant video screen in the Edward Jones Dome.

Clarkson recently agreed to list a few of his Final Four memories. In addition to his first championship game in 1952, he remembered the following:

* The 1966 championship game in College Park, Maryland, between an all-white team from the University of Kentucky and all-black team from Texas Western University (now known as the University of Texas at El Paso):

"I never grasped the significance of the game as I photographed it for SI," Clarkson admits. "It was not until the end of the game (during the awards ceremony) that I watched the Kentucky bench."

It was only as Clarkson recorded the expressions of the Kentucky players, coaches and cheerleaders for what became one of his most famous pictures that he began to understand the historical importance of the moment.

"In later years, that game stood out as a turning point in the evolution of the role of the black athlete in America -- referred to often as basketball's 'Brown vs. Board of Education' moment," he said. "The pictures of the Texas Western celebration and of coach Don Haskins with his team were all good and story-telling in their own right. But the picture of the Kentucky bench said more."

* The 1968 championship game in Los Angeles, which Clarkson remembers for a picture he didn't get -- Lew Alcindor's emergence in African robes from the University of California, Los Angeles, locker room after UCLA's victory over the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, in one of the first public expressions of a conversion to Islam by the man who became known as Kareem Abdul Jabbar.

"I had already packed up my cameras," Clarkson said.

* The 1973 and 1998 Final Fours -- the only times in the hundreds of games that Clarkson has photographed that he was physically involved in baseline collisions with players.

In 1973, Providence College guard Ernie DiGregorio was knocked into Clarkson's lap while driving the baseline. "I held my camera off to the side to make sure he didn't injure himself," Clarkson said. "At that point and at a distance of about eight inches, DiGregorio looked at me and said, very matter-of-factly, 'Excuse me.' "

The other collision occurred when two Kentucky players struck Clarkson while chasing a ball out of bounds. "All the others around asked if I was all right -- and I wasn't really that concerned about my physical well-being because I knew it had made a hell of a picture just before they hit me," he remembers. "As it turned out, I was all right."

* The 1983 championship game in Albuquerque between North Carolina State University and the University of Houston. Clarkson photographed Dereck Whittenburg's long desperation jumper for North Carolina State, which fell just short as time was expiring, but feared he had failed to capture Lorenzo Charles' follow dunk that won the game, because his strobe light did not have time to recycle.

He shipped the film to New York for processing, so it was only during a telephone call to his editor the next morning that Clarkson learned that he memorably captured the winning shot. "I don't know how you did it but you got both pictures," the editor told him. "I didn't know how I did it, either," Clarkson admits.

* The 1971 championship game at the Houston Astrodome between UCLA and Villanova University, which Clarkson remembers for two reasons.

First, he recalls the raised floor that was used at the event, which resulted in fans sitting at the ends of the court seeing very little of the action over the cheerleaders -- and photographers -- stationed on the baseline. "They had to place police guards behind us to control the irate fans," he recalls.

But, more memorably, Clarkson remembers UCLA coach John Wooden taking his seniors from the game one-by-one as the clock wound down on the Bruins' seventh championship victory.

"When Sidney Wicks came out, he went over to Wooden and spent an unseemly long time talking to him. I kept taking pictures for it was such a nice and poignant moment. Much later, I found out that Wicks, who had had a sometimes contentious relationship with coach Wooden, was thanking him for his UCLA years. 'Coach, you're something else,' he said."

Later, Jack Tobin, the co-author of Wooden's autobiography "They Call Me Coach," requested Clarkson's photo of that moment for use on the book's cover.

"He told me that Wooden insisted that was the cover picture, for the moment was one of the most special during his whole career," Clarkson said. "To this day, coach Wooden still says it is his favorite photograph -- from all the 10 UCLA championships."