Yale v. Robert Burns

Herman Hickman has spent most of his life alternately telling funny stories and pummeling his fellow men. As burly (5 ft. 11 in., 230 Ibs.) All-America guard at Tennessee ('32), he tore opposing lines to shreds; as a professional wrestler, he grunted & groaned through 300 contests; as a line coach at West Point (1943-48), he had to stop mixing in the scrimmage with his boys because he put too many of them in the hospital. But last week on the Herman Hickman Show (Fri. 7 p.m., NBC), televiewers saw only his friendly side.

For the first of his new series, Hickman, now 41 and weighing 310 Ibs., surrounded himself with some actors who pretended to be reporters. They asked questions and joined him in laughing at his replies (sample: "Is it true that you'll eat anything, coach?" "I'll eat anything that don't eat me first"). Hickman told tall stories about his hillbilly life in the Great Smokies, recited some folksy poetry. (His friends insist that Hickman actually prefers Homer and Tennyson to Edgar A. Guest and that, though he was born in the Tennessee hills, his forebears were lawyers and statesmen rather than barefoot mountain boys.)

During the four years he coached at Yale (his record: 16 wins, 18 losses, 2 ties), Hickman was in great demand as an after-dinner speaker. He claims to have made more money speaking than coaching ("between $12,000 and $15,000 a year").

He got into TV by showing a high I.Q. as a panel member on CBS's Celebrity Time. Last year he had his own radio show. This year, Yale decided that its coaches, before appearing on radio or TV, would have to show just how the program would benefit Yale. Hickman thus faced the hard decision of tearing up his ten-year contract as football coach or turning down his TV sponsor, Robert Burns cigars. He chose Robert Burns and quit Yale with a typical quip: "When you're being run out of town, get at the head of the line and make it look as though you are leading a parade."

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