The ‘electric zoo’ Tales from the fans who lived in JMU’s most rowdy era of basketball

By JACKSON HEPHNER

The Breeze

On Feb. 2, 1990, at 12:14 a.m., JMU men’s basketball faced then-CAA foe Richmond. The Dukes and Spiders were tied for first in the conference and set to play on ESPN in one of the network’s “Midnight Madness” games.

Peter Johnson, who attended JMU from 1986-88 and 1994-97, said that supposedly when the idea was first proposed, some people thought no one would show up. But JMU fans said they remember this game for one reason — the crowd.

The Convocation Center sold out, packed with fans from the floor to the rafters. Johnson said pictures from the game show students hanging from the railings.

“That game was won before it even started because Richmond got shook,” Johnson said.

The Dukes blew the Spiders that night in front of the packed Convocation Center, 77-43.

“That’s the best crowd we’ve had since I’ve been here,” said then-JMU head coach Lefty Driesell to the Richmond Times-Dispatch. “Even the old people were vocal.”

That crowd sticks out in JMU basketball’s history, but it was far from an outlier. It was the culmination of over a decade of fan culture and excitement surrounding the JMU basketball teams. It was a high point in an era when JMU men’s basketball won three conference tournaments and women’s basketball won four. That excitement was all contained in the student section, dubbed the “Electric Zoo.”

The Electric Zoo started in Godwin Hall. Chip Funk (’84) said going to games in Godwin was “unbelievably exciting but kind of terrifying” because of the bleachers. The fans would be rocking so much that the stands would move. He’d think, “‘Are these things gonna hold up or are we gonna all end up in some serious accident that makes the news?’”

That tradition remained in the Convocation Center, with Johnson recalling the phrase “Rock the Convo” often flashing on the scoreboard. The tradition eventually stopped after it was discovered that the bleachers were moving out of the concrete.

One of Funk’s roommates also had a knack for performing during the games, although in a more official capacity. He and his brother were two of the original performers who played Duke Dog. Funk helped him get ready for games and went on the road with them a few times.

These traditions made their way across Interstate-81 when JMU basketball moved into the Convocation Center in 1982. Head coach Lou Campanelli left JMU in 1985, after leading the Dukes to three straight NCAA Tournament appearances from 1981-83. Three seasons later, the Dukes hired another head coach that would lead them back to postseason contention: Lefty Driesell.

“It was just a bunch of nice guys that could shoot outside and were good on defense and real scrappy,” JMU alum Ginnie Henry Flynn (’95) said. “They were just so much fun to watch.”

Flynn attended games both as a fan and worked in the press box as a reporter for the JMU Video Network. She still has her “Zoo Cage” shirt and button, and remembers some of the students’ old chants, like shouting, “So what?” or “Who cares?” when the opponent’s starting lineups were announced, or shouting the highway numbers that opponents take to get home.

“You sat together,” Flynn said. “You were right there by the court to be obnoxious.”

While JMU’s 1990 atmosphere against Richmond stands out, Flynn said, “without question,” also-CAA in-state foe Old Dominion was JMU’s biggest rival in men’s and women’s basketball during the Electric Zoo era, calling them “The Goliath.”

Down 19 with 13:04 to go in the 1994 CAA Championship game in Richmond, JMU mounted a historic comeback, capped off by a 3-pointer from guard Kent Culuko referred to by JMU fans as “The Shot.”

Flynn was there at the game for the shot and recalls the Monarchs’ victory looked so assured in the second half that the arena’s security guarded ODU’s stands to prevent fans from rushing the court. After Culuko’s shot went in, it was JMU’s fans that rushed the court in celebration.

In women’s basketball, the Monarchs won 17 straight CAA Championships from 19922009, clashing with the Dukes throughout their runs. Johnson remembers plenty of soldout matchups, with fans often directing their chants and jeers toward Old Dominion head coach Wendy Larry (1987-2011).

Larry’s Old Dominion teams weren’t the only high-profile opponents to play JMU in the Convo. Johnson was head student manager of the JMU men’s team when Purdue came in 1994, just months removed from making the Final Four.

JMU pulled off the improbable upset, 91-87.

Flynn remembers UNLV coming to Harrisonburg a year after their run to semifinals, beating JMU, 80-73. That game was originally supposed to be played in the Capitol Centre in Landover, Maryland, but Driesell called UNLV head coach Jerry Tarkanian the summer before, asking that the game be played in Harrisonburg.

Tarkanian, who won the 1990 NCAA tournament title helming the Rebels, obliged. “He could bring in some pretty cool opponents,” Flynn said, “so we had some pretty, I’d say, wild times there.”

Driesell’s big-name status wasn’t lost on one of his players, James Pelham. He played guard at JMU from 1994-99 and remembers playing in that Purdue game, as well as versus Minnesota, who finished 19-12 and made the NCAA tournament that same season. He also remembers Tarkanian coming to Harrisonburg on his own, just to teach the team his signature amoeba defense he created at UNLV. Pelham also remembers the Electric Zoo and cited it as a reason for choosing JMU after a year at Fork Union.

“I thought the fan base, and the students, we had a real connection,” Pelham said, “and it showed up for every game. I mean, we used to sell out the Convo and they were a big part of us having so much success. The excitement walking around campus, being engaged with each other. So it definitely was a great time for JMU men’s basketball.”

But that was all in the past. Driesell was abruptly fired in 1997. Pelham remembers the firing well: The Dukes were headed back to Harrisonburg after losing in the CAA Championship to Old Dominion. Lefty had given a speech after the game about how they were going to “get ’em next year.” The team was informed of the firing after they got off the bus. Pelham recalls the team being upset.

“He was our guy, you know,” Pelham said. “As hard as he was on us, he still was the guy that recruited us and got us to JMU.”

JMU has only won two regular season conference titles and one conference tournament since Driesell’s departure. Meanwhile, the women’s team has continued to thrive during this time, winning five conference tournaments.

Today, the Electric Zoo is a distant memory. Since the 2020-21 season, JMU basketball has called the Atlantic Union Bank Center its home. Men’s basketball won its first regular season title since 2000 in its first season in the new arena. Women’s basketball won its most recent regular season title in its final year in the Convocation Center in 2019-20. Lefty Driesell is 91 years old, and his predecessor, Lou Campanelli, passed away Jan. 31 at the age of 84.

The Electric Zoo may be gone, but its impact still lingers with JMU basketball. Attendance has dipped this past season, but it looks to be trending upward after men’s basketball’s games against Coastal Carolina and ULM drew in the third (5,609) and second (6,429) most fans ever inside the AUBC, respectively. For now at least, that same intensity might not be within the AUBC. But Pelham can certainly reminisce of what was the most successful — and rowdy — era of JMU basketball.

“If you go back and you look at some of those games, and they just show a quick glimpse on the Electric Zoo and how packed and how excited those students were,” Pelham said, “it definitely accounted for a big way.”

Read the full story at breezejmu.org.

Grant Johnson contributed to this report.

CONTACT Jackson Hephner at hephnejt@ dukes.jmu.edu. For more men’s basketball coverage, follow the sports desk at @TheBreezeSports.