Wow! I’m surprise at all the posters who have never heard it. I am totally familiar with the phrase, “He/She gave me the Heisman” although I’ve never had to use it. 
Never heard of it! Ever heard of it … heard of it … of it … it.
I think knowledge of the expression might be correlated with knowledge of US (college?) football. Hence, all us foreigners and non-sporty geek types are (or were, until this thread) blissfully ignorant of it. The expression, that is.
Never heard of it.
Same here! It’s not a phrase that I hear very often, but often enough that I don’t feel like it’s horribly outdated or anything. I’m 35, and would expect most people my age to have heard it at least once before.
No doubt that’s how it got started, and I’d expect it to be less known outside the U.S., but I don’t like football, I don’t know anything about it, the college I went to didn’t have a team, and I’ve never seen the trophy in question – yet, I’ve known the expression for years. 
Well, I will contribute a data point: I had no clue what it meant.
Knew it, and use it. I actually thought that the more recent “Talk to the hand!” came from it.
-Tcat
Heimlich Manoeuvre:
‘Henry Heimlich’s name is known across the globe. Every time he travels, the 83-year-old is greeted by someone with a tale to tell about how the Heimlich Manoeuvre saved their choking mother, father or child.’
Never heard of it.
Ditto.
Also never heard of it. For those who haven’t seen it,
I have never ever heard it. But I didn’t date a lot, either.
There are times when I’m amazed by the SDMB, and there are times when I am saddened. This is one of those latter times.
I love this phrase and use it to kick my friends when they are down (it gets said a lot when we are at bars). We all go through it. That’s what friends are for. It feels great for a guy to do it, but we guys tend not to be as stiff as the women.
Yeah, but yours is more amusing. If you start an, ahem, Heisman campaign to officially change the definition, I’ll vote for yours.
I had never heard the term, but read this entire thread hoping someone would post a picture of the Heisman. That picture is worth 1,000 words. It totally cracked me up when I saw it and now I want to start using the phrase. Thanks FBG!
I’d never heard it before, but I understood what it meant as soon as I read the thread title. Funny stuff. 
Afraid I’ve never heard it.
And unfortunately, you’ll probably be “dating yourself” until someone does **not ** give you the Heisman.
Thanks, dude. Kick a guy when he’s down, why don’tcha?
Keep your fingers crossed for a pleasant outcome when your man Scrappy asks a certain 6’1" swimmer to a function he’s got this Thursday.
I thought it was that football player who broke his leg so badly that his thigh bone was sticking out. Which would still be a bad thing to get when asking a woman out.
(Doing a little Googling, I was closer than I have any right to be for a football metaphor. Joe Theisman leg break video. I didn’t watch it, because I don’t want to see a guy breaking his leg so badly that the thigh bone sticks out.)
Good luck with the swimmer, Scrappy! Hope she doesn’t give you the Theisman.
The funny thing is, the quarterback in question originally pronounced his name “ThEEsmann” until he became a contender for that trophy.
Then the pronunciation suddenly changed to the current one.
“Joe Theismann. Rhymes with Heisman.”
I wish I were making that up.