Ryan

I was born and raised in the Waco, TX, area. I came to Houston on a track and field scholarship to Rice University. I did well and continued to compete professionally on the USA Decathlon Team. “Decat” is short for “Decathlete,” a person who competes in the track and field competition called “Decathlon.”

Since retiring from professional track & field I now coach at an International School in Houston.

I always loved playing board games growing up as a kid, we played everything…
Life, Operation, Hi Ho Cherry Oh, Mouse Trap, Chutes and Ladders, Clue, Trivial Pursuit, Uno, Yahtzee, BattleShip, CrossFire, Hungry Hungry Hippos, Spades, Hearts, and ALWAYS ALWAYS ALWAYS we played Pictionary. I loved Plinko on TV so I made some smaller versions and would take them to church events and let kids win prizes based on where their ball bearing would land. When Halo RISK came out, and we found out that there were win conditions other than domination we immediately began playing at family gatherings. Then I became aware that many versions of RISK had these objective based win conditions and we could knock out a game in a couple of hours, so we went all in and started playing a version of RISK at every family event every year. We played HALO Risk, Marvel Risk, Star Trek RISK, Europe RISK, and eventually RISK Legacy. By this point, I had begun to know what BGG was and started buying Christmas presents based on BGG rankings. Well, one of those games was Gloomhaven Jaws of the Lion, and once we played that I started going to Barnes and Noble and checking out their other board game offerings, when one game caught my eye. It was Bigfoot vs Robin Hood Unmatched. The reason this was a must-have for me, was that I played Bigfoot in a couple of movies as a stuntman and creature. Well around this time, I had bought my first board game online (RISK: Godstorm), and then I found the Dice Tower videos after searching BGG for details on this Unmatched game I had gotten myself into. Well, this was around the time that the worldwide pandemic thing started, so I went from probably 20 board games to closer to 200 after the pandemic. Luckily my wife ended up loving Unmatched, and she is always down for a great 2 player game, she has started getting into some co-op games with me (MicroMacro), and she has even liked one so much she asked me to teach her how to play solo (Tranquility). Now I don’t just wait for family gatherings to play board games, I host game nights and attend a local game night just about every week.  We also invite couples and friends over at least monthly for game nights as well.