Mark Konkle — The Numbers Guy
Class of 2020 | Charger Football | Aurora, IL
WORDS and PHOTO: Calli Townsend
If you didn't know him as a football player, you might know him for his math skills. Or as least that's what Mark Konkle would tell you. Maybe it's his natural ability to analyze and calculate, or maybe it's from years of practice counting all 46 of his cousins.
"I'm really good with numbers. As I went through middle school and high school I was always in the advanced classes" Mark said. "I had already checked out of a lot of the math courses here before I came."
When deciding what to do with his gifting for mathematics, Mark says he prefers business and economics to the science and engineering world.
"I've always kind of gravitated towards the business side," he said. "I enjoy some aspects of science and engineering, but I always found the business side of things interesting. Believe it or not, I find accounting interesting."
His love for accounting led him to an accounting internship with Marsh-JLT Insurance company for the past two summers.
"They're kind of like the middle man. If a company has an accident, we make the claim to the insurance company to decide the amount of money that would get paid," he said. "I helped with the analytics and helped create claims."
Mark will graduate this December with a big decision to make: to continue working for Marsh-JLT in Chicago, or move to a new company, AXA Advisors, in Grand Rapids. While Chicago would be closer to home, much of his family is in Michigan.
"My mom has eight siblings, and my family is the smallest with three kids, so I have a lot of cousins," he said. "All of them live in Michigan. We were together a lot. We're pretty close so we were always driving up to see them."
In addition to his many cousins, Mark has an older sister who is now working in Detroit and a younger sister, Ashley, who just began her freshman year as a basketball player at Western Michigan University. He said is parents would like to move to Michigan so their family can be closer together.
Mark says leaving Marsh-JLT would be hard, but being closer to his family in Michigan is even more important. He said that his parents have had the biggest influence in his life and enjoys being around his family.
"They're both very hardworking and loving people," he said. "My dad went to Albion and played football there. He's definitely the one who introduced me to sports, which are a really big part of my life. He would coach my football and basketball teams, and showed me a love for sports. He's done that for my younger sister as well."
His love for sports extends beyond his own career. Mark said that he would love to coach football or basketball in the future.
"I'm sure it's something I'll do down the line," he said. "It'd be cool to pass my knowledge down to the next level, like if I coached high school."
During his own high school career, Mark got involved with Fellowship of Christian athletes, a group of athletes that would meet once a week before school to talk about incorporating their relationships with Christ in their sports.
"I started going my sophomore year. I wasn't a leader or anything, but I'd try to help organize a few of the events," he said. "It impacts the way we play sports today. You try to glorify God in everything you do and I think sports is a part of that. Sometimes you get lost in the competitive nature and it's extremely important to us right now, but there's a lot of other important things you need to focus on as well. It's easy to compartmentalize."