Mark Coverdale

Yardi

By Leah Etling on Mar 23, 2015 in People

For most California kids, growing up watching football on TV with Dad on the weekend might mean college games on Saturdays and the NFL on Sunday.

For Mark and Jennifer Coverdale’s two young daughters, it’s an early Saturday morning ritual – with all the excitement of English and European games appearing in their Central California living room thanks to satellite technology. Most Americans might still call it soccer, but the daughters of a former pro football athlete from Hull City, England, will surely grow up calling football just that.

“We sit and watch the Tigers together – it’s a family tradition that we have,” he said of watching the matches with his 1 and 4-year-olds. Recently, the family took a trip to his hometown together, making the trip with their children for the first time.

Coverdale, an Inside Sales manager for Yardi who has been with the company for nearly 8 years, came to the U.S. a decade ago. He was training in Los Angeles, still interested in pursuing a professional career in the sport, when the parent of a young player asked him to coach her son.

In the U.S., young soccer players with talent are asked to be part of professional development programs even before they hit their teenage years. Mark joined such a program for his hometown team of Hull City, in northern England, when he was just 10 years old. The experience gave him the opportunity to travel around the U.K. to play against other youth teams, and instilled an early foundation of physical conditioning and skill.

At 16, he was offered a professional contract with the team, which continued until age 19. After attending university at Leeds, he became the first and only member of his family to leave the UK when he moved to the U.S. in 2006.

Though his dreams of continuing to play at the pro level in the U.S. didn’t materialize, Coverdale quickly fell into a coaching role, working both with talented young players and kids in need in Los Angeles. He founded the MC Academy, which he was involved with for over two years.

“Whether they were paid clients or part of our outreach program, seeing kids improve their soccer skills and enjoy playing the game was more rewarding to me than it was trying to make it as a player at age 24,” Coverdale said. “The spirit of American children really captivated me, and it was rewarding to see how they developed and loved the sport.”

When he moved to Santa Barbara, he originally entertained the idea of starting a soccer program here. In the interim, he began working at Yardi as a temporary employee. What he initially thought might be a short term job turned out to be a career opportunity with a family-focused company that offers its employees the opportunity to grow.

“I really love the way that we hire within. There’s a great practice here of letting new hires learn the culture, the company, the goals we are working toward and how our products benefit our clients. It makes me happy to know that people are rewarded for their hard work.”

After spending several years as a road warrior on the commercial sales team, Mark recently accepted a management role in Inside Sales, focusing on the company’s exciting new Genesis² product for small to mid-size companies. He’s now looking forward to developing his Yardi team – and of course, those Saturday morning football matches with his two girls.

“I’m very proud of my sport, and how it has evolved in the U.S.,” he noted. “ I predict it is going to be a dominant sport in the USA in about 8 years.”