It was November 1990 and then-head coach Howard Endelman was leading his women’s tennis team in an early morning sprint workout at Dodge Fitness Center. The team was unhappy and questioning why they needed rigorous training sessions before most of students had even gotten out of bed. Endelman took his team to the squash courts in order to address the issue. The words he spoke that morning have never left the memory of one of his all-time best players, Janette Kizer-Antiles.
Endelman spoke about the importance of giving your absolute best in everything that you do; that if you work hard, believe in yourself, and have a positive attitude, doors will be opened and good things will happen. And as long as you give 100%, regardless of the outcome, you can feel proud of yourself.
Kizer-Antiles took these words to heart as a student-athlete at Columbia. In 1991, she was named first team All-Ivy League, becoming the first Columbia women’s tennis player to receive the honor. She was once again named to the first team as a senior and was the recipient of the Columbia Tennis Award, given annually to the team’s most valuable player. In addition to her commitment to tennis, Kizer-Antiles excelled in the classroom as well. Upon graduating in 1992 with a 3.83 grade-point average, she was awarded the Marion Phillips Scholar-Athlete Award, presented annually to the senior female and male student-athletes with the highest GPA.
Fast forward to 2009. Now a teacher at the Marylawn of the Oranges Academy in New Jersey, Kizer-Antiles inspires her students with those same lessons she learned under Endelman.
After graduating from Barnard College in 1992, Kizer-Antiles began a career in finance, working at Goldman Sachs as an analyst in investment banking for years, and in treasury for one year. In 1995, she returned to Columbia to pursue a master’s degree in business administration. After finishing her MBA coursework in 1997, she spent the following two years working at the U.S. Trust as an analyst/assistant portfolio manager on their Latin American Fund.
It was at that point that Kizer-Antiles decided to take some time off to raise her children. One of those mornings running around the track at Dodge, and away from the grueling practices put on by Endelman, she met a member of the men’s tennis team named Seth. The two wed two years after graduating from Columbia and had three children.
While raising her kids, she was very active in a number of volunteer endeavors, serving as a board member of her synagogue, co-chairing the management of the Oheb Shalom Food Pantry, as well as coaching the U.S. men’s and women’s tennis teams that participated in the 2003 Pan American Maccabi Games in Chile.
As her youngest of three children entered kindergarten, Kizer-Antiles decided she was once again ready to return to the work force. But she was looking for something different. Having volunteered on the international tennis circuit, she felt she had a significant influence on the lives of others, and it was this sentiment that pushed her to pursue a path that involved helping others. She wanted a career where she could shape the minds and characters of young people, and therefore decided to become a teacher.
“I chose to become a teacher to inspire kids,” said Kizer-Antiles. Just like Endelman, she wanted to motivate and challenge her students to be believe in themselves.
Kizer-Antiles teaches at an all-girl school where a majority of the students are minorities from the inner cities of New Jersey.
“As a teacher, I play an important role as motivator to my students – encouraging them to take risks and become more self-confident, to take pride in their work, and to work towards their potential and not to settle for anything less.”
Just as Endelman did for her, Jane Kizer-Antiles is impacting the lives of youths – and she doesn’t need a squash court to do it.
