Man Overboard: The Hickman Case

On the otherwise peaceful afternoon of August 10, 1952, a very large gap suddently appeared in the vicinity of New Haven, Connecticut. This gap was caused by the sudden departure of 300-pound Herman Hickman, former Yale football coach, currently head smoker on the United Cigar Co. Television team.

Since then, the question of whether Hickman jumped or was pushed, coaxed, shoved, or mauled, aided by a conspicuous silence from Yale's usually loquacious Director of Athletics and Hickman, has virtually replaced the weather as New England's favorite topic of conversation.

The fabulously versatile Hickman was a television performer who really enjoyed performing on a quiz show last year, but who nevertheless was a football coach all the way through. A man does not have his championship background--all-American guard at Tennessee, and line coach of Army's great war-time teams--without becoming at least partially addicted to the game.

Hickman was a good football coach, and there are a lot of coaches who would gladly settle for that much-maligned 16-18-2 four-year record. His competence meant little, however, to the Old Blue fanatics, who watched a Yale defeat on Saturday and then turned on their television sets on Sunday to see Herman, en masse, daring to smile and joke. This could not only be considered sacrilegious, it was sacrilegious.

Yale alumni, like most successful men, are not known to keep their grievances to themselves. And as the complaints came, ticket sales faltered. Doubtless many of the alumni felt that Hickman, reveling in the security of a 10-year contract he was awarded in 1950, was giving Eli second place among his loves. This feeling is a symptom of frustration, a disease peculiar to Monday Morning Quarterbacks.

And yet either the high authorities didn't listen at first, or the pressure was slow in building up, because the middle of the summer is indeed, a most unusual time to switch Hermans. The feeling is, that after school ended, Hickman was asked by the Powers to ease up on the T.V. When he refused, the Blues got together, and started writing his 'resignation' announcement, holding its release only until the opportunity when it would least hurt Yale--and Herman. It is still uncertain who brought in the cigars, the College or the Coach.

Herman's independence figured prominently in his rejection of this glorified curfew. He is essentially a jovial man who works hard, but who sees no need to sit around in mourning after a loss. He knew the Dogs were baying, and although he disliked the idea of being "watched," he did like Yale. He liked his unprecedented contract, and except for the dropping of spring practice, he liked the league he was in.

Spring practice was the other thing that soured the man's mind and left him prepared to leave. The Yale de-emphasis caused both ends of his unhappiness and shaky position, in a great paradox. For at the same time that the grads of the Albie Booth era were refusing to realize that theirs was not now nor would ever again be the Top Dog, Herman was very upset by the spring cancellation, something he considered uncalled for, depriving him of his rightful look at the freshmen. The coupling of these two made him somewhat receptive towards any new deal.

But it remains that he was pushed--that Yale started looking for the axe right after the season was over, and those that originally felt that Hickman jumped Yale, and there were many of us, were wrong.

Two cold black facts show that First, the announcement of his "resignation" preceded by several days the completion of a hurried contract with the United Cigar Company. The theory that he was offered too much money to turn down was quashed by the report that his new television contract will not bring him so much as his combined football and T. V. earnings of '51.

And thus Herman Hickman, so round, so firm, so fully packed, packed up and left, aided by a swarm of slow-burning Yale alumni.