The Thunderdome was built in 1979, originally under the name of Campus Events Center. Along with Harder Stadium, it has since become one of the most patronized venues at UC Santa Barbara. After a naming contest and vote among students and faculty, it was eventually given the generic name "Campus Events Center". Eventually, the name was unofficially shortened to the "ECen". For basketball, the arena seats 5,600. Other configurations result in differing capacities, most notably 5,814 as a maximum or 3,584 to 4,848 for concerts. Currently, the 5,600-seat arena is the third largest arena in the Big West Conference, behind the 10,200-seat Stan Sheriff Center at the University of Hawaii and the 8,000-seat UC Davis Pavilion. The floor of the Thunderdome was named by Bleacher Report as the 11th best court design in college basketball.
Transformation into The Thunderdome
At first, crowds were small, but with the hiring of Jerry Pimm in 1983, the UC Santa Barbara Gauchos men's basketball program began to experience greater success. As the size of crowds began to increase, the Events Center gained a reputation as one of the loudest and most hostile venues in college basketball, creating significant problems for opposing teams. After UCSB upset Jim Valvano's North Carolina State Wolfpack team by double digits in 1987 before a sellout crowd, the Events Center acquired the unofficial nickname "The Thunderdome". Credit has been given to the athletic director at that time, Stan Morrison, for having coined the nickname. Also many believe it was further reinforced from Valvano himself when he said in a postgame interview, "It was louder than thunder in there tonight."
The Tortilla Technical
During the 1980s, students threw toilet paper onto the court after the first Gaucho basket. After the school cracked down on this practice around 1990, students started a new tradition of tossing tortillas onto the court like frisbees after the first UCSB basket. The team would then be assessed a technical foul for delay of game while the tortillas were cleaned up, a tradition that became known as "The Tortilla Technical." During an early 1990s game, one of ESPN's professional video cameras was ruined when tortilla fragments got into the mechanism. While UCSB paid for a replacement camera, ESPN was skittish about returning to the Thunderdome. Despite continued pleading from the players and coaches to stop the practice, the tradition continued unabated. When ESPN finally returned to the Thunderdome for a 1997 game against Pacific, the game was interrupted by three "Tortilla Technicals," including one incident late in the game where a tortilla nearly hit coach Jerry Pimm in the face. Following this incident, UCSB officials began searching students for tortillas as they entered the arena. Apart from a few sporadic instances of tortilla-tossing, the novelty has worn off. While the tortillas have stopped flying at The Thunderdome, raucous students have brought the practice to Harder Stadium, home of the 2006 NCAA champion UC Santa Barbara Gauchos men's soccer team, where no such penalties are enforced.
The facility also hosted and the first and second-round games of the 2004 NCAA Women's Division I Basketball Tournament. In addition to sporting events, The Thunderdome has seen many concerts, boxing matches, and performances come through. Dave Chappelle performed comedy on June 2, 2004, while The Killers played at The Thunderdome on April 6, 2007 and the Harlem Globetrotters played an exhibition game on February 15, 2007. The center hosts basketball camps by Michael Jordan and Kobe Bryant. These camps take place during the summer months. Michael Jordan's camp has happened yearly for several years and the Kobe Bryant camp has been happening since the summer of 2010.
