About 20 minutes before the Spectrum Flight Deck at University of Dayton Arena prepared to welcome its new men's basketball coach Saturday, April 1, Director of Athletics Neil Sullivan had one final modification made to the room that's served as a hub for Flyer fandom.

He had an oversized picture of Anthony Grant installed on the bright red wall next to a similarly sized photo of Shauna Green, the women's basketball coach who concluded her first year at Dayton with regular-season and conference tournament titles and an NCAA appearance, and went on to be named the WBCA National Rookie Coach of the Year.

Aside from a sprinkling of comments about the speed in which the Division of Athletics got the photo in place, considering Grant had been hired just two days earlier, few said much about the change in the wall's character. Grant's appearance there just seemed to fit.

Many would say the same of Grant himself. He filled his introductory speech with references to home and community, and continued that theme in informal discussions with fans, old teammates, former coaches and media members when he left the podium. 

"This is where it started for me," Grant said. "To be up here today, I'm truly humbled and honored that I'd get this opportunity."

Then he turned to the current Flyer players assembled in the front row, a group of players who'd lost their head coach a week earlier and were probably wondering how this new guy would maintain and build on the foundation of success former coach Archie Miller had established.

"This is a special place," Grant said. "This is to me, a labor of love. This program is about this community, about the city of Dayton, about you guys."

Grant let them know that this occasion would be one of the few times he'd speak for such a lengthy period about himself. But he wanted them and the rest of the audience to know how he got here, how he first visited Dayton on a recruiting trip 34 years ago as a lanky 17-year-old from Miami and what happened when he first set foot in UD Arena. It was spring 1983, and Dayton was playing DePaul, then one of the top teams in the nation, in their final regular season game. Grant marveled watching Roosevelt Chapman, Paul Hawkins, Ed Young and Damon Goodwin, and was impressed by the atmosphere, the crowd and the intensity in which the Flyers played under coach Don Donoher.

"The crowd was amazing," Grant said. "It sold me right there. I said, 'This is where I want to come, if I can fool these guys into giving me a scholarship.'"

Winning 80-71 certainly helped matters as well.

The aforementioned names became his teammates and coach that fall, and from 1983-87, Grant would play in 105 games, averaging 11.6 points and 6.7 rebounds. He experienced two NCAA tournament appearances, including the Elite Eight run in 1984, and an NIT berth, and was a co-captain and team Most Valuable Player as a senior.

"This place, every single night, that we laced them up and went on that court, you guys inspired us to go out and give it our very best," Grant said to the audience at the press conference. "I was fortunate to be a part of some great teams here."

"You guys" included Donoher and former teammates like Goodwin and Dan Christie, all of whom were present to see one of their own on one of his proudest days as a Flyer. It also included other unknown faces who might have attended his games as a fan and added to the environment that has made UD Arena one of the top fan experiences in the nation.

Grant's UD career ended two decades before sophomore Chris LaReau was born, but he too felt part of that legacy. As current president of Red Scare, the University's official student cheering section, he came with other executive board members to welcome Grant back to Dayton. They asked for a picture after the press conference, and Grant obliged, holding the hand-drawn banner they'd created just for the occasion.

"Once a Flyer, Always a Flyer! Welcome Home!" it read.

"When I'm not watching the game, I'm looking at you guys," Grant said, telling them to "let me know" if he could help in any way. After all, it was an early 1980s version of the group that changed the trajectory of Grant's life and brought him to Dayton.

And in turn, they helped develop Dayton's 20^th head coach.

"Hearing that… it just really validates what we're doing," LaReau said. 

Following graduation Grant played professionally in the now-defunct United States Basketball League. After that he started looking at his other options. He had worked in sales for local WHIO-TV during the summer while at UD, but he wasn't sure if that was the path for him. As he weighed his options, a phone call from a friend led him back to Miami to coach a high school junior varsity basketball team and teach driver's education.

He'd serve as an assistant coach for five years at his old high school, Miami Senior, where future South Carolina coach Frank Martin also worked on staff. Grant then landed the head coaching job at Miami Central High School, and said at the time he would have been satisfied spending his career coaching high school basketball.

But after one year, Dan Hipsher, a former UD assistant coach who recruited Grant to Dayton, called Grant and asked him to join his staff at Stetson University, just north of Orlando.

"Had I not made the decision to leave my home and go to Ohio, I would not have made the decision to leave again and go on a new venture," Grant said. "I gained the confidence to venture off, on my own, because of what I experienced here."

The rest of the story is well known in college basketball circles. After a year at Stetson, a young Marshall University coach named Billy Donovan hired him as an assistant, and brought Grant to Florida when Donovan became head coach there. The Gators won the NCAA tournament in 2006, and Grant earned his first collegiate head coaching position the next year when he went to VCU. In nine seasons as a college head coach — three at VCU and six at Alabama — he took his teams to three NCAA tournament appearances and six postseason tournament berths while compiling a 193-110 career record (.637).

Grant joined the coaching staff of the NBA's Oklahoma City Thunder in 2015, and prepared for a longer stint there with wife Christina, and their four children.

March 25, 2017, changed everything. Archie Miller left for Indiana, and Dayton now needed a new head coach.

"We really didn't think Anthony would get the call because there were some other candidates we thought would be given the opportunity as well," Christina Grant said. "It's so funny, because just two weeks ago we were talking about settling down and making Oklahoma our home for a little while so our high schoolers could graduate."

Of course Anthony Grant heard the news, as he followed the Flyers as a fan and alum. He was leaving Oklahoma City for Houston that Saturday for the start of a three-game road trip, and got a call  when he was in Dallas.

It was Sullivan. Would he be interested in the Dayton job?

"When we got the call from Dayton, it was like a whole different world," Christina Grant said. "He has a special place in his heart for Dayton, so I figured if he spoke with the administration, it was likely going to happen."

Anthony Grant needed advice, so he called the person who'd been there from the start of his college basketball career.

"I was kind of blindsided by the whole thing," Donoher said. "He was into the NBA with a great franchise and everything, and all of a sudden I got a call from him. And he said, 'What do you think?' And I said, "Come on!"

Sullivan and the search committee – University president Eric F. Spina, retired UD director of athletics Tim Wabler, associate athletics director for development Robert Poteat and associate athletics director for revenue and partnerships Adam Tschuor – convened in their "war room" during that period, with emails and phone calls flying. Grant continued to emerge as a clear choice.

"There's no doubt that Anthony Grant was high, high on the list," Sullivan said. "He stayed high on the list and elevated as we went along. This was the first time I met with him, and once I met with him, it became pretty clear."

As Grant addressed the room at UD Arena when he was re-introduced to the Flyer Faithful as head coach, he made the usual appeals to every fan's pressing questions and concerns. The Flyers would win championships, dominate the league and advance deep into the NCAA tournament. It's more than possible to do so at Dayton, he said. It's an elite situation — why not here? And why not now?

"I'm a very faithful person, and I just think it was God's timing," Grant said. "Everything lined up perfectly for this opportunity. In other situations, maybe the timing wasn't right. I told Neil when we talked for the first time in person that I want what's best for Dayton. Selfishly, I want it to be me, but as an alum, I want what's best for this University. And if they, the members of administration, thought that this hiring was the best thing for the University, then I'm doing backflips down Brown Street where I used to live."

To no one's surprise, he rattled off his old address — 1302 Brown Street. A Flyer never forgets home.