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What: “Real Sports With Bryant Gumbel”

Where: HBO, tonight, 10 p.m.

The 1966 showdown between No. 1-ranked Notre Dame and No. 2 Michigan State still ranks as one of

the most memorable college football games ,

even though there was no winner. The game ended in a 10-10 tie.

The game is the featured segment in the latest edition of HBO’s “Real Sports,” and the correspondent is Jack Whitaker.

Notre Dame Coach Ara Parseghian, on why he settled for a tie on the final drive, says: “I thought . . . if we call another pass and we fumble the ball on a sack, they’re in field-goal position and we could lose the game. . . . On the last play I finally signaled in and said, ‘Run the sneak and let’s get out of here.’ ”

Michigan State’s Bubba Smith says, “I can honestly say this: Ara has been through a lot with that whole thing--about playing for a tie. I have a lot of respect for what he did, because he knew he had another game to showcase his team. So why put yourself in a position to lose?”

Parseghian says, “I would not change the decision one iota. I know what kind of coach I am and I know I didn’t make any stupid decisions--as evidenced by the fact that we won the national championship.”

The Irish’s last game that year was against USC, and they won, 51-0.

Cynthia Cooper of the Houston Comets, the two-time WNBA most valuable player who grew up in South Central Los Angeles and played at USC, is profiled by Mary Carillo in another segment.

The other stories are on former Notre Dame linebacker Demetrius DuBose, who was fatally shot by two San Diego police officers July 24, and Tim Strachan, a former star quarterback at DeMatha High in Maryland who was paralyzed before the start of his senior year in a freak diving accident. Maryland honored its scholarship offer to Strachan, who is now a student assistant coach who works with Terrapin quarterbacks during the week and serves as a sideline radio reporter on game days.

Jim Lampley is the reporter on the DuBose story, and he was still working on it late last week, right up until it was time for him to go to Las Vegas for Saturday night’s Lennox Lewis-Evander Holyfield fight.

“We went into this story with the idea of trying to answer how DuBose could put himself in a situation to get shot, but we keep coming back to what appears to be a wrongful-death shooting,” he said.