This news is nearly a week old at this point, but since Michigan is the home to several MCLA teams, including a few (Michigan State in D1; Davenport, Grand Valley State, and Hope in D2) who made the tournament last year, and have a reasonable goal of making it back next season. The 2012 and 2013 MCLA Tournaments will be held in Greenville, South Carolina.
The primary reason for this choice, as shared by some members of the search committee on the CollegeLax forum, was cost. The sites for preliminary and final four games will be used by the MCLA for a grand total of zero dollars, a huge boon to a league whose member teams are oft-strapped for cash. That factor was seemingly more than enough to override the lack of a hub airport in the town (or in the entire state of South Carolina, for that matter). Greenville is 2 hours from Charlotte and 2.5 from Atlanta.
On the other hand, sometimes you get what you pay for. Here’s the site for the preliminary games, courtesy of Google Maps:
Wenwood Soccer Complex: Worth the Price!
So uh, yeah. Six soccer fields, all grass, and at least when Google Maps took their satellite photo, all in questionable condition. Certainly a step down from the beautiful complex at Dick’s Sporting Goods Park (though there were many reasons that the MCLA wanted/had to leave DSGP and Denver). The finals will take place in a high school football stadium (seriously).
All this made me wonder just how ridiculous my ideas of an Ann Arbor and/or Oakland County hosting plan for the MCLA finals would actually be. It’s certainly closer to a hub airport (about 25 minutes from DTW for either site), and affords the “luxury” of turf fields at several high schools. At the time, I admitted it was far from perfect, but if Greenville was the ultimate choice, there’s not nearly enough to complain about.