Andrew Dole sets the table for victory in New Zealand rugby
How an enterprising graduate channeled his degrees into a career feeding and fueling elite athletes on the other side of the world.
This story appears in the spring 2025 issue of RED Magazine.
When friends say Andrew Dole has come a long way, they’re not just talking about his career.
Four years ago, the Colorado native (and double Metropolitan State University of Denver graduate) headed off to New Zealand and put his human-performance and nutrition training to work feeding some of the world’s top rugby players.
These days, Dole is the performance dietitian for two of New Zealand’s four national rugby teams. The storied All Blacks men’s team, named for their trademark black jerseys and shorts, and the Black Swans women’s team are 15-member squads. New Zealand also fields two seven-player squads.
It’s the All Blacks Sevens and the Black Fern Sevens whose nutrition Dole oversees. And he must be doing a good job: Under Dole’s careful guidance, the Black Ferns Sevens won a gold medal at last summer’s Paris Olympics.
It was a massive achievement, but for Dole the work never stops.
“You do feel the pressure to show up 200% every day because these athletes are at the pinnacle of their sport,” he said. “Plus, they’re actively contributing to the legacy of the famous black jersey, which is recognized across the world.”
Dole started out as a chef, but his passion for fitness led him to study diet and nutrition. In 2006, he earned a Hospitality Management degree at MSU Denver. A few years later, he was back, earning a Nutrition and Dietetics degree in 2013.
What kept him coming back?
“There was a lot to like,” he said. “The college is accessible and affordable, with a wide variety of programs to choose from. And luckily for me, it also had a Hospitality and Dietetics program in the same university.”
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Now, he stands as something of a unicorn in his industry: a certified chef who also is a registered dietitian and dietetic specialist with a Ph.D. in Human Performance.
People generally go into either cooking or nutrition. Dole’s genius is that he not only knows which foods are the healthiest but has the savvy to transform them into tasty dishes.
“You can’t eat numbers,” he said. “At some point, you have to put the science onto a plate and make it into an enticing meal, and that’s something I pride myself on doing very well.”
It’s hard to overstate Dole’s importance to both of his teams. He is the chief mechanic responsible for maintaining the extraordinary physical machines in his charge, even as they routinely encounter grueling wear and exertion.
“Rugby sevens is a much faster and brutal version of the sport, to be honest,” Dole said. “With just seven players sprinting around a standard-size field instead of 15, there’s more space to build speed, and the velocity of the collisions is visceral.”
Besides taking so much punishment, the sevens teams endure a heavier workload, often playing six games over just two days. And that requires careful nutritional planning.
“I make sure that each player establishes the right daily habits, eating five or six times a day, so that their bodies will be prepared for the demands of multiday tournaments with inconsistent schedules,” Dole said. “That’s absolutely key.”
After spending so long Down Under, Dole has become accustomed to Kiwi living and found much to like.
“The work-life balance is very healthy here,” he said. “People don’t feel pressure to work while sick, nor feel bad about taking time to deal with family or personal issues.” He also loves the local morning and afternoon tea rituals, where people relax and chat for a while.
However, there is one unusual staple of New Zealand life with which Dole remains firmly, er, out of step.
“It is still a shock for me to see people walking around in public without shoes — in the mall, at grocery stores and pretty much everywhere,” he said. “Even after four years, it’s still hard getting used to that!”
Nevertheless, Dole believes he is where he was meant to be. “Honestly,” he said, “it feels like my entire career and accumulation of experiences have prepared me for this exact place in life.”
