Audie Amirkiai
New SCORES board member Audie Amirkiai is the Manager of Community Relations for the San Jose Earthquakes. We talked with her about her path with the Quakes, her early years in Hollister, CA, and why she joined the SCORES board of directors.
Tell us about your early years
I was born in Santa Clara. When I was four, my family moved to Hollister, a small rural town. There was a lot of land, and you could find a bigger home there. There weren’t any preschools in Hollister at the time, so I tested into kindergarten that year. I’ve always been young for my grade level. After eighth grade, I wanted something bigger, so I chose to go to high school in San Jose, which meant more than an hour of driving each way, every day. My brother and I were playing club soccer then, and we liked to joke that we only came home to Hollister to sleep. After my junior year, we moved back to San Jose.
For college, I bounced around a bit. I started at Sonoma State, which reminded me of Hollister. I stayed a year and then decided to go back home to West Valley Community College, where I played on the women’s soccer team. I finished out the credits I needed to transfer to a four-year college. I spend my last two years at St. Mary’s College and absolutely loved it. I met all my best friends there and played on the club soccer team.
How did you first get involved with the Quakes?
In 2016, as a senior in college at St. Mary’s, I got a job with the Quakes as a part-time usher. I would go home on the weekends to visit my family in San Jose, work at a Quakes game, and then go back to school.
Then at the start of the 2017 season, I got to know the front office staff. I started asking them about their path, how they got where they did. Learning from them, I moved from ushering into the front office Inside Sales program, which was a six-month program selling season and group tickets. I was promoted to full-time on the season ticket team for the 2018 season.
That year, 2018, turned out to be one of the team’s most challenging years. Not the easiest time to be in sales. What did you learn in the process?
I learned a lot! I hadn’t been aiming to go into sales; my ultimate goal was to get onto the account services team, which is focused on managing and cultivating relationships with season ticket holders. But I took the job because I really liked the organization and wanted to learn and grow.
In 2019, I was given the opportunity to move onto the account services team, and stayed in that role until early in the pandemic, February 2021, when I stepped into co-heading the account services department, filling in for my mentor, Alyssa Villaruz, who was out on maternity leave.
I learned a lot from sales, most importantly the value of learning about people’s stories and understanding why they’re buying tickets. Quakes fans are loyal, very devoted fans, and I got to know them through my accounts. I was there as their representative. Especially when a team is having a tough season, you’re trying to understand what draws people to the game—you have to dig a little deeper. Are they coming to spend time together with their families on the weekend? Is this an escape from what they regularly do during the week? How can we be of service to them?
What do you do in your current role as Community Relations Manager with the Quakes?
I’m a public-facing liaison between our fans, our partners, and our players—a helping hand for all of them. With the help of my amazing teammate, Madison, we lead our community initiatives, programs, fundraisers. We form connections with community partners, local nonprofits and artists, and execute on MLS league initiatives throughout the season.
What made you want to join the SCORES board?
I love the model of SCORES, the way the organization counters the pay-to-play model by offering free soccer programming, all while focusing on the whole child. SCORES is helping kids develop into thriving people. Everyone comes from a different walk in life, but we’re all connected in some way. That idea is so important to share with kids. The beautiful game encompasses all of that.
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