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Herman Hickman

American football player and coach (1911-1958)

Correspondence, annotated notebooks and portrait silhouettes prepared for research
People and ideasInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionSep 17, 2026
Entity authorityQ12858457
Source-derived summary

Herman Michael Hickman (October 1, 1911 – April 25, 1958) was an American football player and coach. He played college football at the University of Tennessee and professionally in the National Football League (NFL) for the Brooklyn Dodgers. Hickman served as the head football coach at Yale University from 1948 to 1951, compiling a record of 16–17–2. He later was a television and radio analyst and broadcaster, a writer, and a professional wrestler.

Coach Robert Neyland held Hickman in high regard. "When one (football writer) said Hickman was 'the best guard the South ever produced,' Neyland snarled, 'Herman Hickman is the greatest guard football has ever known.'" Hickman was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame as a player in 1959.

Early years

Hickman was born on October 1, 1911, in Johnson City, Tennessee. Hickman went to Baylor School in Chattanooga, where he played fullback.

Playing career

Tennessee

Hickman went to the University of Tennessee, playing for the Tennessee Volunteers football team from 1929 to 1931. He was member of the Tennessee Kappa chapter of Sigma Alpha Epsilon.

Editorial summary

The public source identifies “Herman Hickman” as american football player and coach (1911-1958). This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Herman, Hickman and American.

Editorial reviewA useful biographical orientation record, particularly for establishing names, roles and a first chronology. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1911, 1958, 1948, 1951—that can be checked directly. The linked authority record independently contributes the date 1911-10-01. Its value is orientation rather than verdict, with Herman, Hickman and American providing the first useful test.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

A short description can identify a subject without explaining its stakes. For “Herman Hickman”, the useful work is to connect “american football player and coach (1911-1958)” to the records capable of establishing context and consequence.

Evidence profile

Biographical claims are most persuasive when dates, appointments and relationships can be traced to records created close to the events described. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 17, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q12858457. VIAF identifies the subject as 107389623. The Library of Congress control number is no2010019406. 3 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1911, 1958, 1948 and 1951.

Critical limits

Later biographies can compress uncertainty and repeat inherited reputations, so apparently settled claims may still require comparison. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Read biographical claims against dates, named institutions and the cited references. Distinguish a subject’s later reputation from evidence produced during their lifetime.

Best used for
  • Establishing names and roles
  • Building a first chronology
  • Locating cited institutions
Verify next

Personal papers, civil or court records, institutional files and the scholarship cited by the source.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Herman Hickman”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Herman Hickman primary sources, Herman Hickman archive and Herman research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Herman Hickman”?
  2. How has the subject’s reputation changed across later accounts?
  3. Which claims depend on a single source or contested interpretation?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from Herman Hickman” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.