ArenaBowl XXI was the 2007 championship game of the Arena Football League and was played at the New Orleans Arena in New Orleans , Louisiana on Sunday, July 29, 2007. It was the third-ever neutral site title game in league's history and the first held in the state of Louisiana. ArenaBowl XXI pitted the Columbus Destroyers of the National Conference against the San Jose SaberCats of the American Conference.
62-474: San Jose took the control of the ball first, after Columbus won the coin toss and deferred to the second half, and scored first on a touchdown run by Brian Johnson. Columbus then tied the score at seven on a touchdown run by Harold Wells. Each team threw for a touchdown to make it 14–14. Trestin George of San Jose then returned the kickoff, following Columbus' second touchdown, for a touchdown, but A.J. Haglund missed
124-432: A game theoretic analysis it provides even odds to both sides involved, requiring little effort and preventing the dispute from escalating into a struggle. It is used widely in sports and other games to decide arbitrary factors such as which side of the field a team will play from, or which side will attack or defend initially; these decisions may tend to favor one side, or may be neutral. Factors such as wind direction,
186-462: A replay was not possible. The most famous instance of this was the semifinal game of the 1968 European Championship between Italy and the Soviet Union , which finished 0–0 after extra time. Italy won, and went on to become European champions. In cricket the toss is often significant, as the decision whether to bat or bowl first can influence the outcome of the game. The coin toss in cricket
248-425: A 2009 attempt to verify this experimentally at Berkeley with 40,000 tosses gave ambiguous results. A much larger 2023 University of Amsterdam study (which won a 2024 Ig Nobel Prize ) performed 350,757 tosses, finding an average same-side bias of 50.8%, but which varied from person to person. Since the images on the two sides of actual coins are made of raised metal, the toss is likely to slightly favor one face or
310-449: A Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back were also used prominently. On Rotten Tomatoes, Friday Night Lights has an approval rating of 82% based on 173 reviews, with an average rating of 7.10/10. The consensus reads: "An acute survey of the football-obsessed heartland that succeeds as both a stirring drama and a rousing sports movie." The film also has a score of 70/100 on Metacritic , based on 35 reviews. Film critic Roger Ebert awarded
372-487: A coin toss for tie-breaking among teams for playoff berths and seeding, but the rules make the need for coin toss, which is random rather than competitive, very unlikely. A similar procedure breaks ties for the purposes of seeding in the NFL Draft ; these coin tosses are more common, since the tie-breaking procedure for the draft is much less elaborate than the one used for playoff seeding. Major League Baseball once conducted
434-411: A comeback drive, but Permian ultimately loses as his final pass flies over the receiver's hands. After the game, Billingsley fights with his drunk father, who throws his state championship ring onto the side of the freeway. The next morning, Don reveals to his father that he recovered the championship ring and gives it back to him. Charles partially apologizes and makes the point that his state championship
496-416: A commitment to impartiality and a willingness to accept the outcome, no matter how arbitrary it may seem. This shared acceptance of chance as the ultimate arbiter can foster cooperation and conflict resolution in various aspects of life beyond sports, including business negotiations and interpersonal conflicts. In December 2006, Australian television networks Seven and Ten , which shared the broadcasting of
558-501: A new state is added to the Union, a coin toss determines the class of the senators (i.e., the election cycle in which the term each of the new state's senators will expire) in the US Senate . Also, a number of states provide for "drawing lots" in the event an election ends in a tie, and this is usually resolved by a coin toss or picking names from a hat. A 2017 election to the 94th District of
620-498: A particular face. Human intuition about conditional probability is often very poor and can give rise to some seemingly surprising observations. For example, if the successive tosses of a coin are recorded as a string of "H" and "T", then for any trial of tosses, it is twice as likely that the triplet TTH will occur before THT than after it. It is three times as likely that "THH will precede HHT" than that "THH will follow HHT"; see also Penney's game . The mathematical abstraction of
682-408: A penny. No—not so that chance shall decide the affair While you're passively standing there moping; But the moment the penny is up in the air, You suddenly know what you're hoping. Friday Night Lights (film) Friday Night Lights is a 2004 American sports drama film co-written and directed by Peter Berg . The film follows the coach and players of a high school football team in
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#1732870048249744-447: A series of coin flips as a contingency on the last month of its regular season to determine home teams for any potential one-game playoff games that might need to be added to the regular season. Most of these cases did not occur. From the 2009 season , the method to determine home-field advantage was changed. Fédération Internationale d'Escrime rules use a coin toss to determine the winner of some fencing matches that remain tied at
806-502: A touchdown by each team led to the final score of San Jose 55, Columbus 33. San Jose won their third Arena Football League title, all since 2002. Grieb was named the MVP , having thrown just five incomplete passes and no interceptions over the course of the game. He was awarded a Mitsubishi Spyder for his performance. Coach Darren Arbet became the second coach to win three ArenaBowls ( Tampa Bay Storm coach Tim Marcum has seven). The game
868-581: Is also used in determining the Second Chance winner's prize. A technique attributed to Sigmund Freud to help in making difficult decisions is to toss a coin not actually to determine the decision, but to clarify the decision-maker's feelings. He explained: "I did not say you should follow blindly what the coin tells you. What I want you to do is to note what the coin indicates. Then look into your own reactions. Ask yourself: Am I pleased? Am I disappointed? That will help you to recognize how you really feel about
930-446: Is fair to two decimals but not to three. That is, typical flips show biases such as 0.495 or 0.503." In studying coin flipping, to observe the rotation speed of coin flips, Diaconis first used a strobe light and a coin with one side painted black, the other white, so that when the speed of the strobe flash equaled the rotation rate of the coin, it would appear to always show the same side. This proved difficult to use, and rotation rate
992-456: Is more important than in other games because in many situations it can lead a team winning or losing the game. Factors such as pitch conditions, weather and the time of day are considered by the team captain who wins the toss. Now there are websites such as flip a coin online which domestic sports team use to toss the coin. Similarly, in tennis a coin toss is used in professional matches to determine which player serves first. The player who wins
1054-454: Is showing when it lands, in order to randomly choose between two alternatives. It is a form of sortition which inherently has two possible outcomes. The party who calls the side that is facing up when the coin lands wins. Coin flipping was known to the Romans as navia aut caput ("ship or head"), as some coins had a ship on one side and the head of the emperor on the other. In England, this
1116-535: Is successful in the playoffs, but all eyes are on the state powerhouse Dallas Carter High School . Permian and Carter make it to the state championship game, which is held at the Astrodome as a neutral site. Miles rejoins the team and watches from the sidelines as the Panthers head into the game. They are initially overwhelmed by Carter's superior size and fall behind, although an interception by Christian helps get them on
1178-467: The 2007 AFL Season , decided who would broadcast the Grand Final with the toss of a coin. Network Ten won. In some jurisdictions, a coin is flipped to decide between two candidates who poll equal number of votes in an election , or two companies tendering equal prices for a project. For example, a coin toss decided a City of Toronto tender in 2003 for painting lines on 1,605 km of city streets:
1240-517: The Texas city of Odessa . The book on which it is based, Friday Night Lights: A Town, a Team, and a Dream (1990) by H. G. Bissinger , followed the story of the 1988 Permian High School Panthers football team as they made a run towards the state championship. A television series of the same name premiered on October 3, 2006, on NBC . The film won the Best Sports Movie ESPY Award and
1302-505: The Virginia House of Delegates resulted in a tie between Republican incumbent David Yancey and Democratic challenger Shelly Simmonds, with exactly 11,608 votes each. Under state law, the election was to be decided by drawing a name from a bowl, although a coin toss would also have been an acceptable option. The chair of the Board of Elections drew the film canister with Yancey's name, and he
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#17328700482491364-578: The Panthers fall behind by 14 in the next game, Comer comes into the game after the second-string running back gets injured and helps Winchell and Billingsley get Permian's offense rolling again, leading them to a comeback win. Despite their small size, Permian's defense proves to be stout under the leadership of safety Brian Chavez and linebacker Ivory Christian, and the Panthers embark on a five-game winning streak. Miles holds out hope that he can return to playing soon. Unfortunately, his MRI scan shows that he needs immediate knee surgery and cannot play for
1426-554: The Point-After-Try (PAT) making it 20-14. On the ensuing possession, San Jose's Clevan Thomas intercepted a pass, and San Jose capitalized on the turnover, extending the lead to 27–14. This would be the halftime score. The teams traded scores in the third quarter, and into the beginning of the fourth quarter until it was 41-27 San Jose, and an errant Matt Nagy pass fell into the arms of San Jose's Omarr Smith . A Mark Grieb touchdown pass to James Roe made it 48–27 San Jose, and
1488-517: The acting, particularly the performances of Black, Luke, and Thornton. Earl Ofari Hutchinson of the Los Angeles Times criticized the film for skirting the issue of race relations in Odessa, which Bissinger had gone in depth about in his book. Peter Travers of Rolling Stone awarded the film 3 stars but said it did not sufficiently get into the heads of the players like the book did. While
1550-506: The bids were $ 161,110.00 ($ 100.3800623 per km), $ 146,584.65 ($ 91.33 per km, exactly), and two equal bids of $ 111,242.55 ($ 69.31 per km, exactly). " Drawing of lots " is one of the methods to break ties to determine a winner in an election; the coin flip is considered an acceptable variant. Each candidate will be given five chances to flip a coin; the candidate with the most "heads" wins. The 2013 mayoral election in San Teodoro, Oriental Mindoro
1612-423: The board before halftime. In the second half, Carter gains a 20-point lead after a pass on fourth down which hit the turf is erroneously ruled complete. However, Permian's defense improves its tackling and the offense pushes through despite injuries as the Panthers score 14 unanswered points to cut the deficit to six. They stop Carter on fourth and inches, leaving the offense to go 75 yards in less than two minutes for
1674-662: The chance of a coin landing on its edge and staying there is about 1 in 6000 for an American nickel. The coin may be any type as long as it has two distinct sides. Larger coins tend to be more popular than smaller ones. Some high-profile coin tosses, such as the Cricket World Cup and the Super Bowl, use custom-made ceremonial medallions. Three-way coin flips are also possible, by a different process – this can be done either to choose one or two out of three. To choose two out of three, three coins are flipped, and if two coins come up
1736-498: The chances being 0.5 by 0.5 by 0.5, the flip is repeated until the results differ), and does not require that "heads" or "tails" be called. A well-known example of such a three-way coin flip (choose two out of three) is dramatized in Friday Night Lights (originally a book , subsequently film and TV series ), wherein three Texas high school football teams use a three-way coin flip. A legacy of that particular 1988 coin flip
1798-443: The coin—for example, over the phone. The flipping party could easily lie about the outcome of the toss. In telecommunications and cryptography , the following algorithm can be used: Bob, by providing his own random word, guarantees that Alice is not able to precompute an image pair of "tail/random string" or "head/random string", for two different random words. Bob is also unable to reverse Alice's hash to see what her chosen outcome
1860-503: The end of a " sudden death " extra minute of competition. Although in most international matches this is now done electronically by the scoring apparatus. In the United States Asa Lovejoy and Francis W. Pettygrove , who each owned the claim to the land that would later become Portland, Oregon , wanted to name the new town after their respective hometowns of Boston, Massachusetts and Portland, Maine ; Pettygrove won with
1922-552: The expectation of handing off the ball to Miles on most plays. Fullback Don Billingsley struggles with his ball handling and is abused by his alcoholic father Charles, who won a state championship with Permian. The players frequently party as they deal with the pressures of Odessa's expectations. In the season opener against the Marshall Bulldogs, the Permian Panthers make the game a blowout. Gaines intends to bench Miles in
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1984-548: The field the teams will play to and/or which team gets first use of the ball, or similar questions in football matches, American football games, Australian rules football , volleyball , and other sports requiring such decisions. In the U.S. a specially minted coin is flipped in National Football League games; the coin is then sent to the Pro Football Hall of Fame , and other coins of the special series minted at
2046-469: The film three and a half out of four stars, writing, "The movie demonstrates the power of sports to involve us; we don't live in Odessa and are watching a game played 16 years ago, and we get all wound up." Other reviews opined the film seemed to glorify what it was criticizing. Charles Taylor of Salon wrote, “...in the second half, the movie turns into a rah-rah celebration of exactly the mindset it's spent
2108-488: The film were "Just Got Paid" by ZZ Top during the montage of the Panthers' road to the finals; the pump-up song featured as the team ran through the tunnel in the game against Dallas Carter was "New Noise" by the seminal Swedish punk band Refused . During the start of the third quarter during the Championship game, the song " I Wanna Be Your Dog " by The Stooges was used. Three songs from Public Enemy 's album It Takes
2170-635: The first day of practice. Under rules of the University Interscholastic League (UIL), the governing body for Texas public school sports, teams cannot use pads or hit until the fourth day of practice (however, in the deleted scenes included in the DVD, a non-pad practice was shown). The soundtrack for the film predominantly featured post-rock band Explosions in the Sky . Music by Daniel Lanois and rock band Bad Company were also included. Other songs in
2232-415: The first half criticizing. All of the bad things that have resulted from the characters' mindless devotion to gridiron glory--the abusive father who stays drunk to forget that the peak of his life came at 17; the barely educated Boobie's having nothing left in his life when a knee injury ends his dream of playing pro -- are converted into obstacles that test the mettle of the young warriors”. Taylor did praise
2294-410: The first half; the opposing team kicks off for the first half. For the second half, the teams switch ends, and the team that won the coin toss kicks off. Coin tosses are also used to decide which team has the pick of going first or second in a penalty shoot-out . Before the early-1970s introduction of the penalty shootout , coin tosses were occasionally needed to decide the outcome of drawn matches where
2356-458: The flip of a coin which has been preserved as the Portland Penny . Scientists sometimes use coin flipping to determine the order in which they appear on the list of authors of scholarly papers . In addition to its practical applications in sports, coin tossing is symbolic of the democratic principle of equal opportunity. When two parties face an impasse, the act of flipping a coin signifies
2418-407: The ground. When the coin comes to rest, the toss is complete and the party who called correctly or was assigned the upper side is declared the winner. It is possible for a coin to land on its side, usually by landing up against an object (such as a shoe) or by getting stuck in the ground. However, even on a flat surface it is possible for a coin to land on its edge. A computational model suggests that
2480-401: The matter, deep down inside. With that as a basis, you'll then be ready to make up your mind and come to the right decision." Danish poet Piet Hein 's 1966 book Grooks includes a poem, "A Psychological Tip", on a similar theme: Whenever you're called on to make up your mind, And you're hampered by not having any, The best way to solve the dilemma, you'll find, Is simply by spinning
2542-400: The other if the coin is allowed to roll on one edge upon landing. Coin spinning is much more likely to be biased than flipping. Stage magicians and gamblers, with practice, are able to greatly increase the same-side-up bias, whilst still making throws which are visually indistinguishable from normal throws. Conjurers trim the edges of coins so that when spun on a surface, they usually land on
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2604-451: The outgoing seniors from his depth chart, and it is revealed that Winchell, Billingsley, Miles, and Chavez went on to have successful lives after their football careers ended, with only Christian earning a Division I scholarship. The film ends with the statement that Gaines and Comer led Permian to an undefeated state championship season the following year. In the film, the team was depicted as practicing in full pads and with full contact on
2666-426: The position of the sun, and other conditions may affect the decision. In team sports it is often the captain who makes the call, while the umpire or referee usually oversees such proceedings. A competitive method may be used instead of a toss in some situations, for example in basketball the jump ball is employed, while the face-off plays a similar role in ice hockey. Coin flipping is used to decide which end of
2728-406: The rest of the season. Miles boldly denies the severity of his knee injury and lies to Gaines so he can suit up again, with his uncle and legal guardian L.V. advocating for him. Permian plays its final district game against Midland Lee, with first place and a playoff berth on the line. The Panthers fall behind, and Gaines puts Miles in out of desperation, but Miles is soon injured again. Winchell leads
2790-403: The same and one different, the different one loses (is out), leaving two players. To choose one out of three, the previous is either reversed (the odd coin out is the winner ) or a regular two-way coin flip between the two remaining players can decide. The three-way flip is 75% likely to work each time it is tried (if all coins are heads or all are tails, each of which occur 1/8 of the time due to
2852-449: The same time are sold to collectors. The original XFL , a short-lived American football league, attempted to avoid coin tosses by implementing a face-off style "opening scramble," in which one player from each team tried to recover a loose football; the team whose player recovered the ball got first choice. Because of the high rate of injury in these events, it has not achieved mainstream popularity in any football league (a modified version
2914-495: The statistics of coin flipping is described by means of the Bernoulli process ; a single flip of a coin is a Bernoulli trial . In the study of statistics, coin-flipping plays the role of being an introductory example of the complexities of statistics. A commonly treated textbook topic is that of checking if a coin is fair . There is no reliable way to use a true coin flip to settle a dispute between two parties if they cannot both see
2976-409: The toss decides whether to serve first or return, while the loser of the toss decides which end of the court each player plays on first. In duels a coin toss was sometimes used to determine which combatant had the sun at his back. In some other sports, the result of the toss is less crucial and merely a way to fairly choose between two more or less equal options. The National Football League also has
3038-437: The toss result is announced, those who guessed incorrectly sit down. The process repeats until the last player standing wins; often the last few players remaining are called to the announcer's table for the climax. A variant with faster elimination is played with two coins and players placing each hand separately. Coin tossing is a simple and unbiased way of settling a dispute or deciding between two or more arbitrary options. In
3100-429: The two parties. The outcome of coin flipping has been studied by the mathematician and former magician Persi Diaconis and his collaborators. They have demonstrated that a mechanical coin flipper which imparts the same initial conditions for every toss has a highly predictable outcome – the phase space is fairly regular. Further, in actual flipping, people exhibit slight bias – "coin tossing
3162-468: The waning minutes, but keeps him in after third-stringer Chris Comer misplaces his helmet making him unprepared to go in. Miles is sent in but severely tears his ACL after being tackled at the knee on the ensuing play. After the incident, Gaines endures intense public backlash from the town for keeping Miles in. In the next game during the start of district play, Permian gets blown out as Winchell struggles with consistency in his increased role. However, after
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#17328700482493224-514: The win. Winchell, Billingsley, and Comer are all injured, but the former two reenter the game. Billingsley takes the ball to the 1-yard line on fourth down, but the play is called back due to a holding penalty. With two seconds left, Winchell desperately runs the ball toward the goal line but is stopped just short, and Carter wins the championship. As the Permian players soak in their defeat, Billingsley reconciles with Charles. Afterwards, Gaines removes
3286-467: Was adopted by X-League Indoor Football , in which each player pursued his own ball), and coin tossing remains the method of choice in American football. (The revived XFL , which launched in 2020 , removed the coin toss altogether and allowed that decision to be made as part of a team's home field advantage .) In an association football match, the team winning the coin toss chooses which goal to attack in
3348-454: Was before flipping the coin, and to lie effectively about its outcome, because he does not know Alice's random word at that point in the process. The New Zealand lottery game Big Wednesday uses a coin toss. If a player matches all 6 of their numbers, the coin toss will decide whether they win a cash jackpot (minimum of NZ$ 25,000) or a bigger jackpot with luxury prizes (minimum of NZ$ 2 million cash, plus value of luxury prizes.) The coin toss
3410-534: Was decided on a coin flip, with a winner being proclaimed after the second round when both candidates remained tied in the first round. In the United Kingdom, if a local or national election has resulted in a tie where candidates receive exactly the same number of votes, then the winner can be decided either by drawing straws/lots, coin flip, or drawing a high card in pack of cards. In the United States , when
3472-508: Was declared the winner. Additionally, the outcome of the draw determined control of the entire House, as Republicans won 50 of the other 99 seats and Democrats 49. A Yancey win extended the Republican advantage to 51–49, whereas a Simmonds win would have resulted in a 50–50 tie. As there is no provision for breaking ties in the House as a whole, this would have forced a power sharing agreement between
3534-435: Was more accurately computed by attaching floss to a coin, such that it would wind around the coin – after a flip, one could count rotations by unwinding the floss, and then compute rotation rate as flips over air time. Moreover, their theoretical analysis of the physics of coin tosses predicts a slight bias for a caught coin to be caught the same way up as it was thrown, with a probability of around 0.51, though
3596-586: Was ranked number 37 on Entertainment Weekly 's list of the Best High School Movies. As preseason practice begins for the Permian High School football team in August 1988, the town of Odessa, Texas has high expectations for the players and their coach Gary Gaines to win a state championship with their star running back James "Boobie" Miles . The quarterback , Mike Winchell, runs under
3658-454: Was referred to as cross and pile . During a coin toss, the coin is thrown into the air such that it rotates edge-over-edge an unpredictable number of times. Either beforehand or when the coin is in the air, an interested party declares "heads" or "tails", indicating which side of the coin that party is choosing. The other party is assigned the opposite side. Depending on custom, the coin may be caught; caught and inverted; or allowed to land on
3720-477: Was the best thing that happened to him, and he now has nothing happy except those memories. The loss puts Permian in a three-way tie for first place with Lee and Abilene Cooper, and a coin toss is held to determine which two teams make the playoffs. Permian and Lee win the toss, and as the Panthers prepare for the playoffs, Miles clears his locker. While in his uncle's car, he cries about his future being bleak now that his promising football career has ended. Permian
3782-472: Was the first of three neutral-site ArenaBowls to sell out, doing so six weeks before the game in early June. An estimated 40% of the crowd was from outside of the New Orleans area, and led to an overall economic impact of around $ 25 million for the city of New Orleans. Coin toss Coin flipping , coin tossing , or heads or tails is the practice of throwing a coin in the air and checking which side
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#17328700482493844-535: Was to reduce the use of coin flips to break ties in Texas sports, instead using point systems to reduce the frequency of ties. "Heads and Tails" or "Heads or Tails" is an informal game of chance using repeated coin tosses, suitable for a roomful of seated people, typically a social or children's event. Initially all players stand. Before each coin toss, all still standing put their hands on either their head to indicate "heads" or their hips or buttocks to indicate "tails"; once
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