The old photograph had been pasted up in a family scrapbook under the tender title: “Just Me and My Daddy.”

Some 18 years later, the same image had been one of the centerpiece pictures in the senior project he had presented before graduating from Carman-Ainsworth High in Flint, Mich.

And just of couple of days ago — before heading off to spring football practice — Anthony Sadler talked about it again as he sat in the Kennedy Union food court on the University of Dayton campus.

The photo shows him wearing nothing but a diaper, a tiny shirt and probably a smile, though from the way he’s turned you can’t quite see his face. You can see his dad’s, though, and there’s pure delight reflected in it.

Anthony Bray had just lifted his four-month-old son out of an infant swing and was holding him up to his face.

“My mother used to always show me pictures of my dad holding me and having me on his lap,” Sadler said. “Man, that’s something I still hold dear.”

In the case of that one cherished photo, it’s not just because it shows father-and-son love, but because it symbolizes something Sadler has always held onto: Life is about rising above your situation.

Sometimes that means just being lifted out of a constraining swing and sometimes it’s about so much more.

Three months after that photo was taken — on Oct. 1, 1991 — Bray was murdered. So was his older brother, Melvin Walton.

Reports from back then say Bray, a 30-year-old truck driver, had won $1,000 that night shooting dice in Flint.

Since then his son has found out a few more details: “He was going to another place because the guys wanted a chance to win their money back. On the way he stopped to pick up my uncle and they also picked up a friend who sat in the back seat. That guy had lost money in the game.”

Less than an hour later Bray’s blue Econoline van was found behind a local elementary school. He was dead inside, as was Walton. Both had been shot from behind by a .45 caliber semi-automatic pistol.

The contents of Bray’s wallet were scattered on the ground outside the van. The $1,000 he’d won was found still hidden in his sock.

The friend, Beinville Alexander, was gone. Although police later found him with blood on his denim jacket, DNA testing was not routine back then and they were not able to make any charges stick.

Meanwhile Mecca Sadler — with the help of her mother, Armcell — was left to raise her baby boy.

“He was the greatest gift God could ever have given me — my bundle of joy — and with the help of my mother we did whatever we could to make sure he had opportunities,” she said. “We didn’t want what had happened to determine his outcome or define him.

“I never wanted his father’s death to be a crutch for him. The way I looked at it, every experience — positive or negative — is a life lesson that can make you a better person. That’s how we approached it.”

The approach worked.

Today, Sadler is a mechanical engineering technology student at UD. He’s on an academic scholarship. He’s also a sculpted 6-foot-2, 260-pound defensive end for the Flyers football team and one of the most personable student-athletes you’ll find on the campus.

Yet, when it’s comes to his numbing backstory — even as his father’s case again made headlines some 20 months ago — he’s pretty much kept that to himself. Few of his teammates know of his past.

But then a couple of days ago, he sat down and opened up.

No excuses

As a youngster, he said he didn’t know the details of his father’s death. His mom would explain later, when he was old enough to understand, but initially she just made sure he knew a little about his dad.

“She used to always let me listen to voice mails just to be able to hear his voice,” he said. “From what she tells me, my dad, God bless his soul, was a great athlete. He was humble and honest. He didn’t try to start trouble. And he cared a great deal about me and my mother.

“Sure, I wish I had had some of those father-son moments other kids had, but it didn’t bother me that much or make me sad because my mom played both roles. And when she had to work my grandmother took care of me, bathed me, fed me, played with me, did everything.

“And even with everything my mother had to deal with, she always showed me strength and stressed whatever happens in life you can get through it.”

As he got older, though, he said his questions about his father became more pointed. He wanted to know what had happened?

He said one day when he was about 15, his mother sat him down and told him what she knew. “But she stressed I couldn’t use that as an excuse to why I couldn’t achieve,” he said. “Instead, it should be my motivation.”

At Carman-Ainsworth he was captain of the football team, won all-conference honors and would graduate with a 3.8 GPA. To find a college, he leaned on Chane Clingmam, who had coached him from seventh grade through high school.

“He made a highlight tape of my best plays and sent it to colleges all around the country,” Sadler said. “I heard back from Morgan State, Central Michigan, Western Michigan, Northwood, Michigan Tech and some other schools. Some wanted me to walk on.

“But Dayton showed a real interest in me and when I came here I liked the way the players cared about each other on and off the field, the connection the coaches had with them and, of course, the engineering school. I loved it here.”

It shows — or at least something does — in that smile of his.

“Oh, so you’ve seen that smile?” a chuckling Clingman said by phone Saturday afternoon from Flint. “He’s just an awesome young man and that smile definitely lights up a room.”

In the morning at Welcome Stadium, UD head coach Rick Chamberlin had said the same thing as he watched Sadler from afar during drills:

“The kid has that great smile. I always tell him, ‘Smile, Anthony, you make my day better.’ That smile of his would lift anyone.”

Bright future

During the summer after Sadler’s redshirt freshman year at UD, the cold case involving the murders of his dad and uncle ended up going to trial.

A year earlier a Texas lab had found a match between Walton’s blood and the stain found on Alexander’s jacket. An ex-con with a long criminal record, Alexander was charged with two counts of premeditated murder, two counts of felony murder and two felony firearm violations.

“All I wanted to know was what happened that night,” said Sadler, who attended much of the two-week trial. “My mother and I, all we really wanted was closure.”

Unbelievably, Alexander was acquitted of the murder.

Although his mother admitted Saturday the verdict was “terribly disappointing,” Anthony seemed to have drawn on that lesson from the old photo.

“I didn’t get that upset that he was let go,” he said. “I didn’t get pulled down by it. Life isn’t about holding grudges. If all you have is, ‘Man, I gotta get that person’ or ‘Man, I hate that person’ — that’s what can hold you back. You’ve still got a life to live. You’ve got to rise above that.”

And that’s what he’s doing.

Part of the minority engineering program at UD, he will intern this summer at a Centerville firm.

On the football field, he has made definite strides the past two seasons. Last year he started his first game and this spring he’s in the rotation at defensive end and is also playing special teams.

“He’s become a weight room warrior,” Clingman said. “He can bench well over 400 pounds and squats in the 500s. He’s got some speed, too. I told him he’s still got two years left to play so the sky’s the limit.”

Chamberlin has high hopes, as well:

“He had raw talent coming out of high school and he’s really grown since he’s been here. I mean look at him out there now. He’s 260 pounds. He’s strong as a bull. He’s got all the physical tools. We need him to be a factor this year and I think he will be. He takes everything to heart and I think he’ll just keep getting better.”

As he watched his sturdy lineman maneuver across the way, Chamberlin’s face seemed to light up.

It was a smile you’d seen before — one that had brought a similar glow to a father lifting a tiny, wiggling son, who was getting his first lesson in rising above the many situations to come.