‘Impact beyond the diamond’ – Dr Lara Andrews on Education, Sport, Health and Rewards
Blazing trails is just what Dr Lara Andrews does. She is the recent recipient of Te Ati Awa Iwi Award – in recognition of her arahitanga as a mana wahine to whānau for services to the sport of softball across Aotearoa and internationally. She was the first woman from Aotearoa to play professional softball in America and has recently celebrated her 100th international cap as a member of the New Zealand White Sox playing a total of 186 games.
And here, as a fulltime employee of Te Herenga Waka—Victoria University of Wellington, Dr Andrews, Lecturer in Physical Activity and Wellbeing is behind the new Master of Physical Activity and Hauora (launched in 2024), in partnership with Sport NZ.
The Diamond (Status)
The recent Te Ati Awa Iwi Award awarded to Andrews is a collaboration between Te Ati Awa, Ngati Toa and Nuku Ora to acknowledge our whānau and their life’s work to encompass Oranga tonu tanga, or a "pathway to continuous wellbeing".
Bases Loaded
Juggling a high-performance sporting career, an academic career, and family is always the “balancing act”. Lara says she loves the role at the University because she can bring her sporting skills and educational experience together. It all comes from a desire to help young people eager to work in the sector.
In America, Lara excelled at the sport she loves —softball. She played professionally while dedicating herself to academic study for 13 years at the University of Delaware. She designed a course promoting social Inclusion (in partnership with Special Olympics), giving students the ability to learn and play alongside athletes with intellectual disabilities on campus. The most important aspect of this, Lara says, is connection. “Not just learning theory, but getting to know people living with intellectual disability, actually working with them and gaining both understanding and a connection. This course is still being delivered today 9 years later”.
Home Run
Returning to New Zealand, Lara has built on that international experience and now teaches both undergraduate (launched this year 2025) and the brand new Master of Physical Activity and Hauora (launched in 2024).
Lara says sport was a way of learning for her. A safe space, and a place to feel more comfortable, given the rudimentary requirements around reading and writing weren’t offered in consideration of bilingual learners back then.
“When I was 18 there was no space for me here at the University. There was no opportunities to study sport or physical activity in the city where I was raised. So instead, I chose to travel overseas to gain that experience.”
She also has sport in her blood. Her cousins include famous golfer Michael Campbell (“he was in his prime when I was in my teens, I was on his parade float”) and Anna Andrews-Tasola, Head Coach for Netball team The Pulse.
Te Ao Maori is in a growth phase, says Lara. She was able to use some of the tenets when overseas and communicate in a way that non-speakers were still able to learn. This has also informed the way she teaches.
“Last year we built a new Masters of Physical Activity and Hauora and it is entirely about building community. What is special is seeing the feedback from students that say they never thought they would go to university, or never thought they would go back. They have increased confidence. They are realising their capability through learning from other students, and with other students from all areas of the sector, ACC, council, Healthy Families, Sport NZ, other sports organisations. It is all about passion, being active, exploring our natural environments and the connections to wellbeing”.
Around 90% of the Masters students were students 10-20 years ago, or this is their first time in tertiary education, but they have strong experience in the sports, play and exercise sector already.
Lara says her role as an educator, and this course in particular, gives her the platform to be both and do both, to role model sport as vocation and lifestyle choice, and to build opportunity for young people working in the sector.
The goal is to build a culturally competent future workforce for physical activity, sport, and health. It is about creating a unique tertiary qualification that fills a gap. Lara says the combination of play, physical activity, and a Māori approach, is what makes it a unique platform and qualification in New Zealand, and around the world, combining indigenous knowledge with wellbeing, using physical activity as the waka for this journey.
The undergraduate programme launched this year, with 50% theory and 50% practical. Students learn in an academic environment and then a practical way. Students learn from each other and learn to measure their own physical outputs and collect data from that to inform their teaching in future academic, coaching, managing, or other mentoring ways.
Becoming a Centurion – The Victory Lap
Earlier this year, Lara Captained the NZ White Sox, the New Zealand Women’s Softball team to compete in the Canada Cup. She has been representing New Zealand across the last 20 years, traveling the world playing the game she loves. She played her 100th international test as part of that 14-day campaign in Vancouver.
And from there to winning the Hutt Valley Sports Women of the Year and Te Ati Awa Iwi Award at the Wellington Sports Awards. Which Lara says “is special because it represents impact beyond the diamond. It shines a light on the true power of sport: Community, connection, and Aroha!”
Lara looks forward to presenting an award she donated, the Sporting and Academic Excellence Award at the Blues Awards Gala Event on 25th September.