An exclusive conversation with 4 Star Sports Media
When Arkansas Razorbacks Women’s Hockey takes the ice in Fayetteville, it represents much more than a new team. It is the physical proof that one coach’s vision – sketched out long before there was a schedule, a roster, or even a single home game – can be built into a real, functioning program.
In an exclusive conversation with 4 Star Sports Media, head coach Andrew Falls described what it’s like to sell a program that, at the beginning, existed only as an idea.
“I thought at first it might be tough to sell,” he admitted. “How do you sell a program that’s never stepped on the ice? When you start this program, how do you recruit a girl and she’s looking at your website or schedule and you don’t have one? You’re starting from ground zero. There’s nothing there.”
So Falls leaned into the one thing he did have: a clear, ambitious vision.
“It was a lot of conversations that went along the lines of: here’s the vision. This is the vision we have, this is the plan, and you’re trying to sell the vision of the program and ask, ‘Do you want to be a part of that vision?“, he said. “Our vision is to qualify for nationals, be a nationally competitive program, be treated just as good, if not better than the guys.”
For a lot of coaches, that would be a recruiting slogan. For Falls, it’s a standard he tries to live every day. And crucially, he refuses to dress that vision up with false promises.
“I can’t go off history, I can’t go off tradition, I can’t go off past results,” he said. “You have to trust me. I’m going to be as honest as I can be with you. I’m not going to lie, I’m not going to sugarcoat anything. This is where the program is at. This is where we’re trying to get to.”
That honesty resonates with recruits. He says he gets a particular question “probably half the time” from prospective players: what’s your five-year plan?
“I love that question,” Falls said. “That’s where I want the focus to be: what’s our five-year plan, what are the next steps for us, what benchmarks do we want to hit each year?”
A Professional Standard in a Club World
If you listen to Falls talk about his program, it’s clear he has little interest in treating the women’s team like a typical “club sport.”
“We travel on buses, we stay in nice hotels, we run this very professionally and efficiently,” he explained. “We try to run this like we are an NCAA Division I program — that’s our standard. We’re going to mimic as much as we can the pros.”
That standard is already changing the daily reality for his athletes. Last season, the women’s team had a short bench and no home games, grinding through road trip after road trip just to put the Razorback logo on the ice. This year, the roster will be deeper, the minutes more manageable, and Fayetteville will finally get to see the women’s club play on home ice.
“Next year we’ll have 22 girls on the roster, 18 skaters,” Falls said. “It’s going to be pretty awesome to see. Our girls are super excited because it’s not just a quantity thing. We have some really good freshmen coming in, and the girls who have been here will get to play with them, and you’ll see the level of play rise from everybody.”
He still remembers how much his core players had to carry last season.
“Some of our better players were playing 30 to 35 minutes in a 60-minute game, which in hockey is crazy,” he said. “Now they’re going to have the rest and they’re going to play even better. They’ll have the legs to keep up.”
Add in five or six home games and everything starts to feel more like a mature program than a startup.
“Every single game was a road trip last year,” Falls said. “You just want to play one game and then sleep in your own bed. This year the quality of play is going to be better, the number of girls is going to be more, and we’re going to have home games, which will be awesome because we’ll have fans who can come.”
Culture, Mental Health, and a Coach’s “Why”
For Falls, building a program is not just about systems and special teams. It is about building a culture that treats women’s hockey as something more than a side note – and building an environment where players feel supported off the ice.
He created a role inside the team called “director of new member education” and empowered one of his players to lead it.
“My goal was: I do not want our seniors hanging out together and our freshmen hanging out together. I want the seniors hanging out with the freshmen,” he said. “From a mental health standpoint, from a culture standpoint, we need to help these girls transition in and get acclimated to college and hockey and the balance of being an adult.”
That philosophy is rooted in his own life. When he talks about his “why,” he immediately brings up his family.
“My daughter is four, and when she was born that was kind of the catalyst to help get this thing started in the first place,” Falls said. “I wanted her to grow up watching girls play hockey. I wanted her to at least see it as a possibility, something she can do. It’s not just ‘that sport is for the guys.’”
He’s clear-eyed about the long-term stakes.
“The long-term goal is that it continues long after I’m gone,” he said. “If I were to leave, the last thing I want to see is it start to crumble. We need to have everything set up so that when Keller’s gone and I’m gone, it continues. This is about more than just us; it’s about other people. That’s the why: the people.”
In Fayetteville, that “why” now has a team, a schedule, and a locker room. The vision is no longer theoretical. It’s on the ice.
