There’s No One Like Olivia Falls

By Blake Baxter

This is the second story of a summer series on rising senior student-athletes at Eureka College.

EUREKA, Ill. – Eureka women's basketball coach Jaylynn Stewart knows what happens when you step in front of Olivia Falls on the court.

And, more importantly, she knows better than to get in her way. It's just not worth it.

"Absolutely not," Stewart said. "I absolutely would never step in front of Olivia with a full head of steam."

"That's a smart move," Falls said. "If you don't move, I'm going to run through you and take you out, so we'll see if you're willing to stay in there."

Stewart has played a lot of basketball in her life. She played against Division I players at Illinois State University and was a prolific two-year starter at Eureka. She wasn't a player known to avoid contact; on the contrary, her former teammates would attest to her ability and willingness to set and run through a hard screen.

But with Falls, it's different.

"If I get hit with a screen, I am dead," Stewart said with a laugh. "I'm just dead. I would take one from (EC assistant coach) Drew (Mitchell) before I took one from Olivia."

The 6-foot-2 Mitchell often guards and works with Falls in the post at practice. On one occasion, he came out on the other side of a Falls collision with a bruised rib. That's the risk that comes with tangling with Eureka's rock-solid, 5-foot-8 senior forward.

If you stop by Christine Bonati Bollwinkle Arena and Convocation Center on game day, you'll quickly notice her unflinching physicality, her unparalleled work ethic and her passion for competition. But if you spend time with her off the court, you'll soon learn there's much more than that separating her from your typical student-athlete.

 "She's just so quirky," Stewart said. "There's no one like her."

"She," teammate Abby Stotler said, "is just in her own lane."

The Red Devils wouldn't have it any other way.

. . .

Heading into her senior season, Falls is on pace to become the sixth player in Eureka women's basketball history to record 1,000 points and 600 rebounds. She could reach 1,000 points and 800 rebounds. It's not guaranteed by any means, but it's certainly in play. She currently has 823 points and 570 rebounds in 64 games played over three seasons, the last of which was about half as long as a normal season due to COVID-19.

As a freshman, Falls started every game, averaged 10.8 points per game while shooting 54 percent from the field and 71.9 percent from the free-throw line and was second on the team in rebounding with 6.9 boards per game.

As a sophomore, she was one of the most consistent players in the St. Louis Intercollegiate Athletic Conference. She averaged a team-best 15.4 points per game while shooting a league-high 57.2 percent from the field and snagging 10.5 rebounds per game.

During a season in which the Red Devils were low on numbers, Falls was more than comfortable carrying the load. She was named SLIAC Player of the Week four times, and after the season, was selected to the All-SLIAC First Team.

That doesn't mean much to Falls, though. In fact, she hardly remembers anything about her stats or accolades from that season, or any other.

"I don't pay attention too much, so I don't know what I've received," Falls said. "If I do know about them, they don't mean much to me because I value my own opinion. It isn't great and I know that, because my opinion is pretty negative. I kind of go based off of feelings."

When Stewart was hired to take over her alma mater's program after that season, she watched film of every game and could easily see what a special player she had on her hands.

"She's a 5-7, 5-8 post player who plays like she's 6-5," Stewart said of Falls. "She consistently has to go up against people who are 6-1, 6-2, night in and night out. Outside of maybe some of her finishes, you really can't tell that she's giving up six, seven, eight inches every night. She holds her own. 

"She's strong. She can outwork you. She can outthink you. She's not going to be able to shoot over you, so she has to find another way to get things done, and I think she uses all of her advantages the best that she can."

This past spring, Falls had to adjust to a different kind of team with a new playing style and a deeper bench. She went from being an offensive focal point to being one of six players on the team who averaged eight points or more. Additionally, foul trouble often kept her from getting as many minutes as she was used to the year before.

Still, Falls managed to average 12 points and 9.5 rebounds while shooting 57.9 percent from the field. By the end of the shortened season, she was playing her best ball of the year.

Among her most notable games were a season-high 19-point performance in a close loss against Webster and a 15-rebound, 11-point showing in EC's SLIAC Tournament victory over Spalding. She also scored 17 points on 8-of-10 shooting in EC's season-ending loss against Webster in the SLIAC Tournament semifinals.

Falls was named to the SLIAC All-Tournament Team and received All-SLIAC Third Team honors, but if you ask her, she didn't have a very good season. It turns out that there's often a gulf between how others view Falls' performance and how she views her own.

"I think of myself as very one-dimensional," Falls said. "I only see myself as being like an energy player. I just come in and I just hustle, and that's all I do for the team, but I've slowly realized that there actually is more stuff (I do), and I'm actually not garbage.

"This past season, I definitely realized that talking with the coaches at end of the year that I do provide something to this team, which is good to know."

Perhaps Falls would think higher of herself if she took a look at a stat sheet or watched a highlight reel from time to time. Over the past three seasons, few have had as many big moments in maroon and gold as she has.

There was the time when she notched a season-high 22 points and 16 rebounds in a SLIAC win over Principia as a freshman.

There was the time the following year when she dropped 24 points on 9-of-11 shooting and pulled down 13 rebounds in a comeback win in overtime against Knox.

There was the time later that season when she scored the winning basket with a hard drive into the paint through contact with three seconds left, sealing a big win over Spalding when it was the top team in the SLIAC.

And this spring, there was the game-tying layup late in Eureka's near-comeback against Greenville in the team's season-opening thriller.

But for Falls, winning as a team is what's important. Basking in her own glory, even for a moment, doesn't interest her.

"It truly means nothing to me about scoring," Falls said, "so it doesn't matter how many points or how little amount of points I have."

She said it's a reaction from noticing some people she played with growing up were more interested in their stats than the team. It never set well with her, so she swore off paying attention to stats altogether.

"I feel like I'll get too big of a head if I focus on numbers," Falls said. "Like, if I have great game, I'll be like 'Ah, look at me, I did all this.' I don't want to become that person, so I go the opposite route and don't look at anything."

Tellingly, the only stats that Falls keeps tracks of is how many free throws she misses and how many turnovers she commits in a game.

Another habit that puts her in stark contrast with her peers is that Falls doesn't have any social media. Never has, and she says, probably never will. It's partially because she saw how social media could affect people's self-esteem and cause drama when she was in high school and middle school, but it also just fits with her personality. She likes being in her own world.

"I'm not a super people person," Falls said. "I love people in specific settings, but I'm not a super outgoing person in regular settings, which surprises a lot of people. I truly do love being by myself."

Consequently, Falls has a hard time learning people's names and keeping up with plans. She didn't know who all of her teammates were until the second semester this year, and she often doesn't know which team they're facing until she gets a scouting report.

Somehow, though, she is a consistently reliable presence, always showing up, doing her part and being ready to go.

Falls says that she doesn't like to show up to things early because small talk makes her uncomfortable, so she intentionally arrives right on time.

It can be an unnerving habit, but she's never once been late, so her coach doesn't worry about it anymore.

 "When I say 'on time:' if practice is at 6, she walks into the gym at 5:59:48," Stewart said with a laugh. "She knows what works for her, and she just does it."

. . .

A lot of the unique habits and attributes Falls has stem from her childhood. Falls grew up the youngest of her parents' six kids in Bloomington. All of her siblings were either athletic or competitive –  particularly her two brothers who played multiple sports – and they all liked to pick on her.

"I have a great family, but they just used to beat up on me," Falls said. "I was a very annoying child. I just wanted to be loved and wanted the center of attention, so I did a lot of stuff to get them in trouble and get them mad at me."

Getting tough and strong, Falls says, was the natural byproduct of getting picked on, roughhousing and wrestling with her siblings.

"It was simply playing with them," she said. "There was never any, like, weights or anything. I wasn't going out and trying to get strong. It was simply getting beat up on."

A hyper child with a short attention span, Falls said her parents encouraged her to get involved in sports at an early age so she could have an outlet for all of her energy. She enjoyed playing every sport, but the high-contact nature of basketball easily made it her favorite.

In high school, Falls played volleyball, softball and tennis, in addition to basketball. At Bloomington, she was a two-time All-Big 12 Conference basketball honoree, helping the Raiders notch 54 wins in four years.

She was a good student, but she never saw herself going to college because she didn't like school and she felt like her teachers were always talking down to her. Her parents, however, had other ideas. Once Eureka started recruiting her, they pushed her to pursue it.

"I was like, 'I don't want to go to college. It's dumb. It's not going to do anything for me,'" Falls said. "My parents were like, 'That's cute, you're going to go to college and get your degree.'"

Now, Falls is majoring in psychology and minoring in leadership. She says that she could see herself working with kids in the non-profit sector someday.

At Eureka, she's gone from a good student to an excellent one, holding a cumulative GPA of over 3.8 and recording a 4.0 this past semester.

She's done it all without taking notes in any of her classes. Falls says she has trouble doing two things at once, so she listens in class and then carefully reads the book afterwards. It's an unorthodox method of learning, but it's tough to argue with the results.

Eureka has also given Falls the opportunity to play a new sport. During her sophomore year, when the women's soccer team needed more players, she stepped up to try something completely new. This spring, she was only able to play a few games because of overlapping schedules, but she's looking forward to playing again this fall.

"It was extremely fun," Falls said. "I didn't know most of the rules, but I was honestly just using all of my other sports knowledge to understand what was going on."

Despite her initial skepticism, the Eureka College experience has undoubtedly been a beneficial one for Falls.

"I do feel like I have a community here," she said. "I'm free to be myself, which I really enjoy."

. . .

There was one incident from the past season that perfectly encapsulates the Olivia Falls experience.

Eureka was on the road, leading Fontbonne by six with less than a minute and a half to play until halftime.

A shot went up on the Red Devils' end and Falls and a Fontbonne player each went for the board. The referee called a jump ball, but Falls continued to hang on to it as she crashed to the floor face-first, shattering her front two teeth.

On the other end of the gym, Stewart was urging her to get up, oblivious to the damage.

"She was laying there and I was like "You're fine, get up, you're fine,'" Stewart said. "Savanah Moore came over and said 'Coach, her teeth are on the ground.' I said, 'Oh, so she's not fine!'"

But Falls didn't let that faze her much. She scooped up the remnants of her teeth, collected herself and went to the locker room, where she soon reconvened with her teammates for a halftime speech.

She started the second half and played the rest of the game like it was nothing.

"I was always going to play, regardless of what the trainer had said," Falls said. "I like trying to make an impact for my team and I like being out there playing, so there was nothing that was going to stop me."

"She's just tough as nails," Stewart said.

The next day, Falls had to spend five hours at the dentist's office. Not only had her teeth been shattered, but a nerve had been exposed. The dentist restricted her from eating a lot of different types of foods during her recovery. Characteristically, Falls had other ideas.

"They gave me fake crowns and I broke them two days later," she said. "I ignored their suggestion not to bite into (things). I was feeling myself and I shouldn't have. I should have just listened.

"It was very fitting for the type of person that I am."

Falls subsequently had to undergo a series of unpleasant procedures over the next few months, but they didn't impact her season.

With the teeth saga behind her now, Falls is looking forward to her last season of college basketball. She knows the kind of player she can be when she's at her best, and she's ready to prove it to herself.

Falls doesn't lift weights – that's another piece of her unique lore. Instead, you'll find her preparing for the season shooting hoops outside the church by her house or going on a run, almost certainly, by herself.

"I'm hyped about this last season," Falls said. "I'm going to have a better season than last year. My only goal isn't a personal goal. My only goal is to get a shirt for making the (NCAA) Tournament."