By: Cody Brandon
“A tie is like kissing your sister” – the famous phrase widely attributed to Navy football coach Eddie Erdelatz – is emblematic of the American competitive spirit. On my way home from Christmas vacation I scanned through AM radio stations broadcasting in the mountains of western Virginia to listen to the Oklahoma-Georgia College Football Playoff game that refused to end in a tie. The NFL has created a series of 12 tie-breaking procedures that end in a coin toss to determine the winner of a division. One of the most exhilarating legal practices in the NHL is the shootout to break a tie, topped perhaps only by the illegal act of dropping one’s gloves. The Constitution even provides a tie-breaking procedure for the Presidential election in the Twelfth Amendment.