Out & In

At the University of Minnesota, where taciturn Bernard W. ("Bernie") Bierman, 59, had coached his alma mater's football team for 14 years, winning six Western Conference titles along the way, the situation was strained. With six losses and a tie, Minnesota was having its worst season in memory. One day last week Bernie tossed in the towel. Said he, in a characteristically formal Bierman statement: "I have requested that I be relieved of the football coaching duties at the end of the year." Minnesota's fangless Gophers were sorry to see Bernie go. At week's end they wrought an upset by beating Purdue, 27-14, then hoisted Bernie to their shoulders and lugged him in triumph off the field.

At New Haven, where garrulous, gargantuan (300 lbs.) Herman Hickman, 39, was in the midst of his third season at Yale, the situation was quite different. The Elis had won five of their first seven games, the best season in Hickman's regime so far. Though Hickman (Tennessee '32) was no Old Blue, Yale liked him fine. The Yale Athletic Department also liked the corn-pone drawl in which Hickman had announced his coaching aim at New Haven: to win just enough games "to keep the alumni sullen but not mutinous." Though Hickman's five-year contract still had two years to run, Yale last week tore it up and handed him a new one. Its term: an unprecedented ten years. Three days later, powerhouse Princeton gave Hickman's Yale the worst beating (47-12) in the history of the Princeton-Yale series. Nobody tried to hoist Herman up and carry him off the field; indeed, considering Yale's prospects against undefeated Princeton, no one had thought it timely to have a derrick on hand for the job. On the other hand, not even the grumblers showed signs of becoming mutinous.

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