Died. Herman Michael Hickman, 46, behemoth (more than 300 Ibs. at top weight) radio-TV sports figure, contributing editor and football expert of SPORTS ILLUSTRATED, onetime (1948-52) head football coach at Yale, author (The Herman Hickman Reader), wit. storyteller, versifier; of complications following an operation for gastric ulcer; in Washington, B.C. A sideline Santa Claus who could quote Shakespeare by the act, Hickman won such popularity at Yale that the university once gave him the longest contract in its history (ten years) despite his not Merriwell-done record: when he resigned in 1952 in favor of a radio-TV career, his Yale elevens had won 16, tied 2, lost 17. Win or lose, the Tennessee Cannonball was good for a laugh, liked to tell stories on himself. Once, in a game with Princeton, the referee penalized Yale ten yards because Hickman was coaching from the sidelines. "I ran after him; the coach recounted, "and shouted. 'Why, you dumb so-and-so, you don't even know that the penalty for [that] is 15 yards!' The referee looked at me scornfully and said, 'For the kind of coaching you're doing, it's only ten.' " Born in Johnson City, Tenn., Herman Hickman was an All-America guard at the University of Tennessee, a professional with the Brooklyn Dodgers football club and a pro wrestler before turning to coaching. He assisted at Wake Forest and North Carolina State, went to the U.S. Military Academy in 1943, built for his boss. Earl ("Red"') Blaik, the impenetrable Army line of the Blanchard-Davis era. Once asked for a statement of his philosophy, Ulcer Victim Hickman said: "When I work, I work hard; when I relax, I rest loose; and when I begin to worry, I fall fast asleep."

Died. Ernest Eden Norris, 76, longtime (1937-51) president of the Southern Railway Co., "the guy''--according to Frisco line President Clark Hungerford--"who brought the Southern from doldrums to dividends," father of Novelist Frank Collan (Tower in the West) Norris; of a heart attack; in Washington, D.C. A lifetime railroader who began his career in his teens, Norris ceaselessly patrolled the Southern in his office car, knew every foot of the road's 8,000 miles of track, once walked away from a wreck and waited until that evening to have a broken collarbone set with no other painkiller than a shot of whisky. There are only two things a man will turn his head for, said "Uncle Ernest" Norris, "One is a pretty woman, the other is a train."

Died. Helena Hill Weed, 83, Vassar '96, kinetic suffragette who crisscrossed the nation crusading for her right to vote (and was thrown into jail four times in Washington), member of the National Woman's Party and a founder of the Women's National Press Club; in San Jacinto, Calif.

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