Andrew Ostrow was born and raised in Brooklyn, New York. He completed the baccalaureate (Brooklyn College), masters (University of Maryland), and doctoral (University of California, Berkeley) degrees. When he was a doctoral student at Berkeley, he was invited by a group of Canadian nurses to a party in San Francisco. There, he met his future wife Lynne who was an ICU nurse at Stanford University.
After a brief stint living and working in the south island of New Zealand, Lynne and Andy returned to California where Andy served as the tennis coach at San Francisco State University. In 1973, Lynne and Andy were offered faculty positions in the School of Physical Education (now CPASS), and the School of Nursing, respectively. They each were each WVU faculty members for 35 years, before both retiring in 2008.
Andy developed and taught new undergraduate and graduate courses in CPASSsuch as research methods, statistics, foundations of sport and exercise psychology, sport psychological assessment, and doctoral dissertation proposal seminar. He served on or chaired numerous thesis and doctoral dissertation committees. He was the recipient of several CPASS Outstanding Teaching Awards. Andy also was active in scholarly research and publication. He was the author/editor of two books related to the psychological aspects of aging and physical activity. He was also the editor/publisher of the widely acclaimed Directory of Psychological Tests in the Sport and Exercise Sciences. For his efforts in contributing to the scholarly mission of the sport and exercise psychology discipline, he was the recipient of the MidwestAAHPERD scholar award.
Andy was the founding Program Coordinator of the Sport and Exercise psychology program. Through the encouragement and support of Dr. Dana Brooks, Dean, Andy was able to recruit a group of highly talented and accomplished faculty to the Sport and Exercise Psychology program. Through their efforts, and the support of faculty affiliated with the counseling program at WVU, the doctoral program in sport and exercise psychology emerged as one of the leading doctoral programs in the nation.
In 1984, Andy and his colleague Bill Alsop, launched Fitness Information Technology (now FiT Publishing) as a subchapter S corporation. Over the next twenty years, FiT published over 75 textbooks, scholarly reference books, and trade books in the sport management, sport and exercise psychology, physical education, and athletic coaching fields. Some of these textbooks were authored by CPASS faculty. FiT also published several academic journals and online databases. FiT served as a publishing partner with national and international professional organizations. FiT also established a world-wide book distribution network, and its books were translated into a number of foreign languages. For his efforts, through FiT, in advancing the sport management field, Andy was the recipient of the NASPE/AAHPERD Distinguished Achievement Award in Sport Management.
In 2004, Andy and Bill donated the assets of FiT to CPASS for the purpose of establishing the International Center for Performance Excellence. The center was launched in honor of Andy’s father who had visited over 85 countries, and who had instilled in Andy a passion for using sport as a common bond for fostering relationships among people of different cultures. The center was established as one vehicle for promoting the internationalization of academic programs in CPASS, and for promoting and providing support for faculty and students to participate in international exchanges.
Lynne and Andy are the proud parents of two daughters, Jennifer and Olivia. Jennifer (married to Brett) is a former New York City high school principal now working as an educational consultant for a private firm in New York. Olivia (married to Neil) is a physician at the Sick Children’s Hospital in Toronto, Canada. During retirement, among other activities, Lynne and Andy enjoy spending time with their families including six grandchildren.