Fred Bowen's "The Score" column,
October 3, 2003, Washington Post

Fitting to Be Tied

What's so terrible about a tie?

I was checking out the college football scores. There were about 10 overtime games last weekend. Three of the nation's Top 20 teams had to go past four quarters to decide their games. I just want to know why two teams that are tied after 60 minutes in a regular-season game can't just shake hands and call it even?

After all, we are talking about big-time college football here, not golf or tiddlywinks. Football is a rough game with bone-crunching tackles and Monday morning injury reports. Asking a bunch of 18- to 22-year-olds to keep playing after they are exhausted is asking for trouble and even more injuries.

Anyway, the college football overtimes are phony. The referee plunks the football down at the 25-yard line and one team tries to score. Then the other team gets a chance from the 25-yard line. That's not real football. It takes a lot of hard running and smart passing to get the ball down to the other team's 25-yard line.

Other sports overtimes are just as phony as football. Take soccer shootouts. When was the last time you saw anyone in a soccer game have a wide-open shot straight in front of the goal from 12 yards away? In soccer shootouts each team gets five wide-open shots.

I understand that in the pros or in a championship game, you have to have some way to decide a winner. But it's gotten so bad that some folks won't even let kids' games end in a tie. I've seen kids as young as 7 or 8 years old going into extra innings or overtime just to decide who wins some regular-season recreational league game. What's so terrible about saying to the kids that the teams were even and nobody deserved to lose?

Now I know what you're thinking. Overtimes are exciting and ties are boring. Well, I have two answers for that. First, maybe if the coaches and players knew that there was no overtime, they would take more chances to win during regulation. They might go for the two-point conversion after a touchdown or try a long pass.

Second, the most exciting football game I ever saw was a tie. I had an older brother, Rich, who went to Yale University. One year, he took me to the Harvard-Yale football game. Harvard and Yale are traditional rivals that are better known for having smart students than winning football teams. But this year both teams were undefeated and the winner of the final season game would be the Ivy League champ.

Late in the game, Yale looked like it had the championship locked up, leading 29-13. But with 42 seconds left, Harvard scored a touchdown and made a two-point conversion to close the gap to 29-21. Then Harvard recovered an onside kick. And with no time remaining on the clock, Harvard scored another touchdown and made another two-point conversion to knot the final score, 29-29.

The headline in the Harvard school newspaper the next day was "Harvard Beats Yale, 29-29." So I ask you, what's so terrible about a tie?