April's next big challenge - ‘IT'S TIME TO GET MOVING!'

The former TV star is back in the public eye and revelling in her new passion

- Wendyl Nissen

It’s been a long time since we’ve seen former Silver Fern, broadcaster and TV presenter April Ieremia in the media – in fact, it’s been 10 years.

But here she is as gorgeous as ever at 54, bright and bouncy, and doesn’t seem to have aged at all while she’s been away from the spotlight.

“I can thank my mother Edith for those genes,” laughs April.

So why has she been keeping away from the cameras and the exposure?

“To be honest, I just didn’t think I was that interesting,” she says. “So, if I thought that, why would anyone else think I was interesting?”

An assistant coach for the Marvel's netball team, April explains she has returned to her passion, where she started out in her first job as a PE teacher in Christchurch back in the early ’90s.

As a sports manager at Westlake Girls’ High School on Auckland’s North Shore, she spends her days getting hundreds of students organised in sports.

“At the moment, I’m all about volleyball,” she says. “It’s easy, fun and it’s cheap, so it’s the perfect vehicle to get everyone into something. And it’s just gone boom!”

April began coaching the premier netball team when her daughter Atlanta started at the school.

“We had really good success and took the team to its best-ever performances nationally – second at New Zealand Secondary Schools Championship in 2018 and third the following year. I started as sports manager in 2019 and it is something that really resonates with me.

“When I was in sports broadcasting, it really resonated with me too, but lifestyle television? Not so much,” she laughs.