Move Over Joshua Packwood! The UMES Women’s Bowling Team is in the Hizz-ouse

At this HBCU, victory has only one color, Lady Hawk maroon.

With the inroads and successes of white students at historically Black colleges and universities already making national headlines, comes the somewhat less widely reported but nevertheless thought-provoking news out of the University of Maryland-Eastern Shore (UMES), that the bowling team at this historically Black public university become the first team from an HBCU to win a Division I NCAA championship.

How is this story related to the widely disseminated tale of Joshua Packwood’s rise to valedictorian status at the historically Black Morehouse college? Well, both are clearly demonstrative that white students at HBCUs can and do receive the same support in reaching the highest levels of achievment as their African American peers.

You see, only one of the 11 members of the University of Maryland-Eastern Shore bowling team is Black, and she did not play in the championship match. Coach Sharon Brummell, an African American, is very proud of her team’s ability to rally in a high-stress situation. Said Brummell (in an interview from NCAASports.com), “Today, these young ladies fought. When we were bowling against Vanderbilt earlier today and we were down three games, it got a little scary. Then Jessica Worsley decides to pick up a 2-10 split and it just seemed to change the whole momentum of the game and they came out fighting today when we were starting out in the championship.”

With this victory, Coach Brummell’s Lady Hawks become the first historically Black college or University to win a women’s title at the Division I level, and the coach herself becomes the first woman coach to ever win an NCAA bowling championship, a fact that brings her great joy. She explains, “Somebody told me I was the first woman to win a championship. We’ve been to all five championships and finally a woman wins. It’s a wonderful feeling, it really is.”

Coach Brummell brings home the trophy after the Lady Hawks’ victory at the NCAA championships in Omaha. You can read an interview with Coach Brummell at HBCU Sports Blog. Click on THIS LINK.

Sources: The Journal of Blacks In Higher Education and UMES Official Athletic Site