History
The stadium was built in 1966 and is named after Theodore "Spud" Harder, a former coach of the Gauchos' football team. It hosted Vince Lombardi and the Green Bay Packers who trained there ahead of the 1967 Super Bowl I. The UC-Santa Barbara football team played their home games at Harder Stadium until football was cut after the 1972 season due to budget cuts. UCSB brought football back as a non-scholarship sport in 1983 and by 1987 was playing a full Division II and III schedule. In 1992, the NCAA ruled that Division I colleges must play at the Division I level in all sports; UCSB and a few other universities attempted to form a non-scholarship Division I-AAA level, but the effort failed and UCSB eventually dropped football. The stadium has a capacity of 17,000 people, and currently is the largest stadium on California's Central Coast. Along with the UCSB Events Center, it is one of the more well-attended athletic venues in the Central Coast.
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