Door to door, the walk from 1302 Brown St. to the Frisch’s Big Boy across the street took less than a minute. Somehow, it did not ruin the burgeoning basketball career of Anthony Grant. For three years, Grant occupied that address on the edge of the University of Dayton campus. And for three years, he did not resist the occasional burger run, nor the more-than-occasional dessert. He cannot recall the specific name of his favorite treat, but he knows it involved eating chocolate cake filled with ice cream at an hour when college basketball players probably should not be eating chocolate cake filled with ice cream.



“Loved it,” Grant says now, laughing. “High-performance meals at 12 o’clock at night, right before you went to bed. Don’t tell my players that, though.”



It’s been seven months since Grant, Dayton Class of 1987, returned to his alma mater as its head men’s basketball coach, and he has been struck by...