Joe Theismann

[snopes]

The story often has been told about how the pronunciation of Joe Theismann's last name was changed to rhyme with Heisman before his senior season at Notre Dame in 1970. The way the story goes, his name was originally pronounced Theez-man.

But that's not exactly correct, according to what the former quarterback told The Times' Jerry Crowe.

Theismann said that before he gave approval to the pronunciation change, he had to run it past his family.

So, he said, "I called my grandmother, who was kind of the patron saint of the family, and I said, 'Granny, look, they're thinking about changing the pronunciation of my last name from Theez-mann to Thighs-mann … and she said, in her very hard German accent, 'Vel, I think it's OK. Actually, the correct pronunciation is Tice-mann, so it's a lot closer and that's fine.'"

http://www.latimes.com/sports/custom...,5977968.story

[Delta-V]

Well, the Granny is right about the correct pronounciation being Tice-mann...In German, 'th' is a hard 't' sound, and 'ei' is a long 'i' sound.