Maryland-Eastern Shore sports information director Stan Bradley checked in earlier this week with some interesting news: The Hawks' women's bowling team won an NCAA title last weekend in Omaha, Neb.

There's lots of interesting facets of this, one of which is the program could pull a CCNY basketball, circa 1950, deal and win a pair of national titles in a year. The Hawks are in Wichita, Kan., this weekend for the USBC championship (there must be something about bowling and the Midwest).

But here's some other interesting tidbits:

* It is the first NCAA championship in school history.

* It is the first NCAA Division I women's championship for a historically black college or university.

* Bowling coach Sharon Brummell makes roughly $10,000 for her coaching duties (she's also an assistant athletic director), which seems like a considerable bargain at a school not known for a powerhouse athletic department. UMES, by the way, just doled out $110,000 a year to Frankie Allen to fix up its perennially moribund basketball program.

In case you're wondering, the NCAA bowling tournament is an eight-team double-elimination event. The NCAA has had four different champions --- Nebraska, Fairleigh Dickinson, Vanderbilt and UMES --- in five years. Needless to say, power conference membership is hardly a prerequisite.

--- Patrick Stevens