Views Files In Template Not Overriding Other Files

I'm working with a view "news_admin_list" and am displaying it on a page via:

 $view = views_get_view('news_admin_list'); 
print $view->execute_display('default'); 

From what I understand, someone should be able to override the default template file for a specific view by placing a correctly named file in their active theme directory. I have copy/pasted a lot of the default views.tpl.php files into my current theme and views recognizes and uses them, but for some reason they don't have access to the php variables.

For instance:
File: views-view-table--news-admin-list.tpl.php

 print "<br /><br />This part shows up<br /><br />";
php print_r($row); //this displays nothing
php print_r($header); //neither does this 

So I'm curious if it's a bug or what is going on here? Views obviously recognizes the template file being used, but none of the php variables are assigned? Any ideas?

Thank you.