I grew up in a very competitive household. We were a game night family all through college. That’s what we’d do every single weekend — we’d have a massive game night with all of our friends.
In 2016 during training camp, the Associated Press released news that it was the 80th anniversary of AP, so they released the top 100 college football programs of the last 80 years, based on a point scale. The point scale they used, with all the criteria they used, you couldn’t argue with it! It was a ranking according to points, it wasn’t based on somebody’s opinion or some analyst. It was facts!
I went around and memorized the top 10 and then asked all our teammates and coaches, keeping track of how many they got wrong until they got all 10. The guys loved it! Redskins head coach Jay Gruden said, “You got another one?” And I said, “No, but Coach, the good thing is, I’m a punter. So while you guys are in a meeting, I’ll just go up to the room and come up with questions.”
What everybody loved about it was that it had statistical backup, and it had multiple answers. So I started coming up with the last 10 Super Bowl winners, the last 10 Super Bowl losers, the five teams Michael Jordan and the Bulls beat in the NBA Finals, the six largest states by land area, the seven ingredients to McDonald’s BigMac.
After I came up with all these different multiple-answer trivia questions, I cut out little note cards. While we were messing around and playing it with family and friends, my wife, Bri, looks at me and says, “This is really fun! I hate trivia, but I love this game! Why don’t you look into copyrighting this and doing something with it!” I thought, “Why not!”
So we did our research, my mother-in-law came up with the LLC, “Way Fun Games,” a little play on our last name, and we started this company. And it all started with this trivia game called, “What’s Your Bid?”
I ended up creating a few more, and having gotten copyrights for four games so far, I love it! It’s just something fun to do on the side. I really love the creative aspect of it. And it’s Biblical! Our verse for the company comes from Ecclesiastes 8:15, which says, “So I commend the enjoyment of life, because there is nothing better for a person under the sun than to eat and drink and be glad. Then joy will accompany them in their toil all the days of the life God has given them under the sun.”
People need to enjoy time together! And that’s our hope, that we can get people together to just have fun and enjoy this life.
— Tress Way, Washington Redskins punter
The Increase, part of the Sports Spectrum Network, is a community of Christian pro athletes sharing their personal stories of the decrease of self and the increase of Christ (John 3:30). Visit TheIncrease.com for more stories and videos.
