Michiana Echo: the soccer club on the township's back fields, and the 2026 merger

By 2015–2026 documented · Harris Township Park, Brummitt Road

Granger's second league is a travel soccer club that grew into a state address: Michiana Echo — in its later form, Echo Premier Soccer Club — seats its fields at Harris Township Park on Brummitt Road near Beech Road, in the middle of the CDP, and its indoor training center in Granger as well, on the club's own account. The ground came by lease: the Harris Township trustee's own published account records that the township, having developed the back fields at the Brummitt Road park with the Granger Business Association's support, entered a lease with the Michiana ECHO Soccer Club, which has called the park home since — the arrangement in place by the trustee's October 2018 account. The club plays its home fixtures on the park's numbered fields (the state league schedules print "Harris Township Park — Field 01" and "Field 02" as Echo home venues), under the Indiana Soccer League and US Youth Soccer, as an exclusive Coerver club — the Dutch technical-training method carried as the club's identity — and, by formal alliance, as Indy Premier's northern partner, which puts Echo players inside the Girls Academy League and MLS NEXT structures through Indy Premier United. The club calls itself, in its own materials, the first area club with an integrated futsal program, and runs a recreational Rec+ tier beneath its travel ladder, academy teams from the youngest ages, and a high-school program staffed, in 2020 and 2021, entirely by college coaches, on the club's own record.

The club's people carry state honors, and they date the club's standing better than any founding claim: its director of coaching, Omar Gallo — head men's and then women's soccer coach at Holy Cross College, a UEFA A license holder — was Indiana Soccer's Director of Coaching of the Year for 2016, on the club's and the college's records; its head technical director, Duma Magagula, was Indiana's Girls Coach of the Year for 2018; and its TOPSoccer director, Mary Schalliol, was Indiana's TOPSoccer Buddy of the Year for 2016. TOPSoccer — the outreach program for young athletes with disabilities — is the club's earliest dated appearance in the record reached: in April 2015 Holy Cross College's athletics reported a four-week TOPSoccer program "held at the Michiana Echo fields in Granger, Ind.," with Gallo quoted as the club's director of coaching and Schalliol credited with bringing the program to the area. By the club's own December 2018 accounting it would field ten academy teams that spring, with more than a hundred children through its First Skills program. The club's founding year is not printed in any source and stands as a named gap below; the record fixes the club in Granger, at standing, by the spring of 2015.

One of its fields carries a coach's name: the club's scholarship page records Bradleah Richard Mick — "Coach Brad," an Elkhart-raised player who became an Echo coach and assistant director of coaching after years coaching across Michiana — who died unexpectedly on August 8, 2021; the Brad Mick Echo Scholarship stands in his name, and players receiving it play, in the club's words, on "Echo's Brad Mick Field #3" at the Brummitt Road ground. The named field is printed at the size the record gives it: a youth club with a memorial field and a scholarship fund is an institution with a history of its own, whatever its founding date.

In February 2026 the club's independent course ended in the merger its leaders said had been discussed for twenty years: ABC57 reported on February 12, 2026 that Michiana Echo Premier and Junior Irish were joining forces as the Northern Indiana Football Club, combining resources against the rising cost of youth soccer; Echo's board president, Adam Kirkpatrick, carried the announcement — "Every year, Echo Premier ends up cutting some kids because we don't have enough for a team, or Junior Irish does the same" — with academy tryouts set for early June 2026. Junior Irish, the merger's other half, prints here at boundary size by the seat rule: founded in 1977, on the club's own materials the premier club of northern Indiana for two generations, carrying a Granger post office box (P.O. Box 1456) through its history but playing its home fixtures on South Bend's ground — the state schedules print its teams at the Airport Complex in South Bend — so its whole belongs to South Bend's build. What is Granger's in the merger is Echo's half: the Brummitt Road fields, the indoor center, and the club's players now stand inside the Northern Indiana Football Club, and as this section is written, in November 2026, the merged club is the largest sporting organization ever to hold a Granger seat.

Named gap — the founding: Echo's founding year and original seat (the trustee's account implies a club that played somewhere before the Brummitt Road lease) are unsettled in the record reached. Settling sources: the club's own corporate and board records; Indiana Soccer's club affiliation files; the South Bend Tribune and ABC57 archives for the club's first seasons.

Sources:

1. Echo Premier Soccer Club (michianaecho.com), the club's own site, read November 2026 (facilities: fields at Harris Township Park, Brummitt Road near Beech Road; the dedicated indoor facility; the Coerver identity and Indy Premier alliance; the futsal claim; the Brad Mick scholarship page — Mick's death August 8, 2021, and Brad Mick Field #3; the December 11, 2018 coaching announcement — Gallo 2016 Indiana DOC of the Year, Magagula 2018 Indiana Girls Coach of the Year, Schalliol 2016 TOPSoccer Buddy of the Year, ten academy teams and 100+ First Skills participants).
2. Holy Cross College athletics via University of Jamestown athletics, April 21, 2015 (the four-week US Youth Soccer TOPSoccer program at "the Michiana Echo fields in Granger, Ind."; Gallo as Echo's director of coaching; Schalliol's role).
3. Kenneth E. Lindsay, Harris Township Trustee, in the Granger Gazette, October 2018 (the back-fields development at Harris Township Park at Brummitt Road, supported by the Granger Business Association, and the lease with the Michiana ECHO Soccer Club) — the Gazette survives in a degraded scan; the fact is printed, no long quotation taken.
4. ABC57 via Archynewsy, "Michiana Soccer Clubs Merge: 20+ Year Plan Finally Realized," February 12, 2026 (the Northern Indiana Football Club merger; Adam Kirkpatrick, Echo Premier board president; June 2026 academy tryouts).
5. GotSport state-league schedules, 2022 seasons, read November 2026 (Michiana Echo home fixtures at "Harris Township Park — Field 01/02"; Junior Irish home fixtures at the Airport Complex, South Bend) — schedule-record strength.
6. Jr. Irish Soccer Club directory and club materials, read November 2026 (founded 1977; P.O. Box 1456, Granger) — boundary entry, directory strength.