sullen but not mutinous

[Laurence Horn]

At 4:55 PM -0500 9/25/00, GEORGE THOMPSON wrote:
>         Another quotation for Fred Shapiro, one that should appeal to him
>since it originated at Yale.  I heard it fom my father, probably 50
>years ago, and he probably had just read or heard it.  He attributed
>it to Herman Hickman, then the Yale football coach.  Someone, no
>doubt a sports reporter, had asked Hickman what his hopes were for
>the upcoming football season.  He replied to the effect that his
>hopes were the same as they were at the outset of every season: that
>the boys would play at least well enough to keep the alumni sullen
>but not mutinous.
>
Nice that even Presidents of Harvard give the coiner proper (if
anonymous) credit:

Our aspirations for Harvard's central services are modest. To
paraphrase a former coach from New Haven: we aim to keep
students and faculty sullen but not mutinous.
- President Derek C. Bok, J.D. '54, LL.D. '92, to the Faculty of Arts
and Sciences,
                                                          October 11, 1971

Other sources vary:  some put the phrase in quotes without any
attribution, others cite "a former football coach" or "a former Yale
football coach", but with nobody that I can find actually attributing
the line to Hickman, who coached at Yale from 1948-52, despite the
fact that Hickman (a.k.a. The Tennessee Cannonball) was a legendary
figure in his own right as a professional wrestler and football
player and an amateur poet.  The text below comes from a Brooklyn
(Football) Dodgers web site--

Herman Hickman, a
     5'10" 240 lbs. Guard from Tennessee who was known as the Poet
Laureate of the
     Volunteer State because of his penchant for poetry. Despite his
bulk, he was
     unusually quick and nimble. He later became a popular coach at
several schools,
     including Yale, and he also would become known as an early
television personality
     and game show panelist in the 1950's.

And here's the opener of a Red Smith piece
============
When old rasslers fall out, the concussion loosens plaster for miles
around. Herman Hickman, whom Jimmy Cannon has described as the only
rassler ever admitted to the human race, recently entertained readers
of "The Saturday Evening Post" with affectionate reminiscences of his
years among the sweaty thespians of the mat. It was a tender piece,
fairly throbbing with bonhomie, yet it brought indignant response
from the recipients of Herman's warmest encomiums.  No sooner had the
blubbery barons of the craft spelled out Mr. Hickman's words than a
mushroom-shaped cloud of protest burst into print. You'd have thought
the plump poet laureate of Johnson City, Tenn., had accused them of
poisoning wells instead of saluting them as God's noblest creations,
next to man...
(New York Herald Tribune, Feb. 16, 1954).
============

Fred, we need you to rectify this slight, as George points out!

larry