As the son of a global businessman, Anil Jethmal and his family moved from New York to Bombay, India when Anil was just 6 years old. At age 10, his family moved back to New York permanently.
While living in India during those formative years, Anil Jethmal attended the prestigious all boys Campion School. Founded by Jesuit in the 1940’s, Campion’s focus was to foster individual achievement as well as teamwork in both academics and in athletics. Naturally, the school hired the best and brightest instructors to teach the children. Looking back, however, Anil also credits Campion’s structure as setting the school apart and above from all others.
Campion taught students from 1st to 12th grade (Indians use the word “standard”). Students from each grade were divided into 3 houses for their entire academic career at Campion. The white team was named Loyola; the blue team was Xavier; the red team was Britto. The school has recently added a yellow team named Berchmans.
Each student was awarded points for his team based on academic, athletic and citizenship excellence. At the end of each week, month and academic year, point totals for each of the 3 teams were tallied across all grades and announced at assembly. Anil Jethmal recalls an atmosphere of camaraderie and encouragement among his fellow Loyola members. It wasn’t unusual for a Loyola member in a much higher or lower grade to offer Anil encouragement on a relay race, or to push him to study hard for his science test, for that matter. Anil recalls wanting to do better not just for himself, but also for his team.
Reflecting back on those days, Anil sees the extraordinary value of both excellence and cooperation that Campion engendered. Certainly, the results are undeniable when one considers the success of its alumnae. When one asks Anil Jethmal about his own successes in life, he credits his teachers, his schooling and, in no small measure, his beloved Loyola team, whose motto “Now or never”, to this day, still rings in his ears and, to this day, hasn’t failed him yet.
