With the exception of the Blue Ridge Mountains that surround the city, ETSU’s Memorial Center, better known as the Mini-Dome, is the most dominant landmark in Johnson City.
It was known for 26 years as the home of the Buccaneer football squad, until the team was disbanded in 2003. Now there is talk of disassembling the dome, too, but it has other facilities that would be displaced as well. The other occupants include the indoor tennis facility, the training room, weight room and the athletic offices.
The Mini-Dome houses the main basketball court, two practice courts, a 280-meter track, six racquetball courts, six tennis courts, a rifle range that serves ETSU’s marksmanship class, two gymnasiums, a strength training facility, several locker rooms, a physical education dance studio, a physical education research laboratory and the athletic training room.
The Mini-Dome also serves as the location for most of the athletic offices as well as the coaches’ offices. And it is the home one of the largest strength-training facilities in the Southeast, the Jerry Robertson Athletic Medicine Center.
The center, also known as Buc Sports, serves, on average, 75 athletes each day, providing physician, physical therapy and athletic training services.
In 1994 this facility received a $200,000 renovation and was enlarged to 7,500 square feet. With the renovation came a state-of-the-art rehabilitation machine. According to ETSU’s athletic web site, this machine is one of the most up-to-date muscle testing and rehabilitation devices in athletic training today.
Around 150 people work in the Mini-Dome on a regular basis, but additional staff is usually brought to manage basketball games, track meets and both commencement exercises. The building is used almost daily and a study estimated that more than 250,000 people are in the building during the course of the year, says William Toohey, the Memorial Center director.
The Memorial Center opened in 1977, and its original cost was around $11.9 million. In September 1978 the first event was held. It was a football game against Mississippi College. It is one of the few indoor, multipurpose athletic facilities in the nation. Other colleges with indoor athletic facilities include University of Illinois and University of Kansas.
With the capacity to accommodate over 15,000 fans, the Mini-Dome hosts one of the country’s largest indoor track meets each year, the Niswonger Track and Field Invitational.
In the Mini-Dome, the Buccaneer football team had one of its best seasons since joining the NCAA Division I rankings, the 1966 season in which they won six home games.
Over the years the Mini-Dome has undergone several renovations. In the fall new bleachers were installed for the 2004-2005 basketball season. However, the building still has its structural defects, says athletic administrator Dave Mullins.
“We have not built any new facilities, aside from the golf facility, since the Dome was built in 1977,” he said. But, this may change within the next 10 to 12 years.
ETSU administration and the athletic department have been discussing a master plan to improve the university’s athletic facilities. However, ETSU will need to look over other issues, such as fundraising, in order for these plans to become reality. “We just need people to get interested, like they did with the golf facility,” Mullins said.
The new plans include a basketball arena, an indoor tennis facility, a soccer stadium, and a performing arts center. Also, since both the baseball and softball team’s currently play in city parks, there are plans for a new baseball park. Mullins also said the performing arts center will be funded by the state within the next two to three years.

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