ST. LOUIS — From the moment Kenny Robinson could walk, he was destined to put on some shoulder pads and a football helmet.
In Pennsylvania, the age you can start playing football is four and that’s when it all began for him.
“The day I woke up, he said the first words I said is I can play football now,” Robinson recalls a memory he shared with his father, Kenneth Robinson on his fourth birthday.
Robinson and his father formed a bond like non-other, he grew up and became a star at Ronnell Heard at Imani Christian Academy in Pennsylvania. It didn’t take long for colleges to recognize he had a gift. West Virginia decided they would take a chance on what Robinson described as an underrated, talented kid.
“It just felt the most at home, honestly,” Robinson said. “It was far enough away from home where I could stay away from the trouble, but it was also close enough to where my family and whoever wanted to come support me could come to my games and come see me.”
While in Morgantown, West Virginia, the former 3-star recruit had to earn every minute of playing time his freshman season.
“When I first got there, it was kind of hard, because I was a freshman and I was on the edge of redshirting and playing,” he said.
Robinson saw action at cornerback for the first time in his career before being switched over to Safety a few games after that. He made eight starts his freshman season and earned All-Big 12 Conference Honorable mention and tied for the team lead in interceptions.
In his second go-around, Robinson went from being the student to the teacher.
“My first year was like ups and downs and then I finally started to make plays and then it just got better from there,” Robinson said.
The hard-hitting, sideline to sideline defensive back was named to the All-Big 12 Conference team, he was the second-leading tackler on the Mountaineers along with a bunch of other accolades, but most importantly, NFL scouts were taking notice.
His dream of playing in the National Football League was right there, the writing was on the wall.
Then things took a dramatic turn for the worse.
“It was a big mistake on my hand first of all,” Robinson said when discussing what went wrong at West Virginia.
“I had all online classes, so a girl was helping me here and there,” Robinson said.
Without the constant supervision of a teacher in a classroom, Robinson admitted he got lazy.
“When we got to spring ball, I asked her to do an assignment for me when I go home for this funeral,” he said.
The unnamed student did the assignment for Robinson, but she submitted the work during a team meeting which instantly triggered a red flag landing Robinson in student conduct court.
“My first thoughts was they're not going to kick me out of school, like I never did nothing, I don’t even have no record at the school, just a parking ticket,” a smirking Robinson said.
In the meantime, before the verdict was announced, Robinson was still participating in spring practices and even took part in the Mountaineer's annual spring game. Surely there was no way they would kick him off the team he said, but he guessed wrong.
Robinson was expelled for academic dishonesty.
“Once they kicked me out I was like wow, I did all this for y’all, I broke my neck for y’all all this time, I stayed out of trouble all this but you're not going to give me a chance,” he said.
Adding more salt to the wound, Robinson said he wasn’t the only Mountaineer football player to do such a thing,
“There was 13 other guys, and only two of us were removed from school,” Robinson said.
He said that was a slap in the face, but the verdict stood, he packed up his belongings and moved back home to face his toughest critics, his parents.
“At the time, my dad knew but my mom, she didn’t,” he said.
There was a big reason why, she had suffered two strokes and had to go to the hospital where they learned she had colon cancer.
“I really didn’t want to tell her because I felt like that was something that might really kill her, that’s something that would break her heart,” Robinson said.
Afraid of what his mom, Danielle Hudson, would say, Robinson waited to share the news. Hudson found out when everyone else did, when the news broke. His dad, on the other hand, knew the entire time and vowed to his son they would weather the storm.
“He’s like we're going to handle it, we going to figure something out and we going to make sure you straight regardless of what happened,” he said.
That’s when the Xtreme Football League started poking around, giving Robinson an alternative, go to the XFL or find another university.
At first, the thought of Robinson going to the XFL wasn’t an option for his mother. She wanted him to live his life, make decisions in his best interest and she’d be there to support him on whatever trail he blazed.
“In her head, she’s thinking that’s not the way to do it because she’s still upset about kind of so she wants me to go back to school,” he said. “She was used to the traditional way of everything you know, go to college and then get drafted”
But after many back and forth conversations with his father, they ultimately decided there was only one thing to do. Go to the XFL.
Can’t forget to mention the XFL sweetened the offer and made it extremely hard to pass up.
“They're gonna let me go to school, they gonna pay me so we’re gonna be able to be financially stable at the moment and be able to help her out,” Robinson said.
At the time Hudson could barely speak due to her strokes, but she was riding with her son no matter what. Robinson ended up signing with the St. Louis BattleHawks where he quickly put the league on notice.
“A lot of the guys we play against like to talk a lot of stuff but they don’t know where I’m from and what I got going for me,” Robinson said. “This is not a friendly sport, you got to bring it.”
In just five games, the 21-year-old brought it tallying 21 tackles and two interceptions. His dreams were coming to fruition.
His parents were seeing the gamble pay off.
“It means the world you know,” Robinson said on the thought of making his Mom proud. “We don’t get to talk as much as I want to but when I do talk to her she don’t do nothing but cry, she just so happy and excited.”
Soon, Hudson will have even more to cry about, her baby will get a chance to accomplish a childhood dream, play in the National Football League.
“I always thought I belonged in the NFL,” Robinson said on the thought of going to the next level.
But Robinson isn’t counting his chickens before they hatch, he continues to live in the moment and control what he can control
“Just that lesson from West Virginia taught me just stay humble, stay focused on now and the main thing and that’s just stay focused on what you got to do,” Robinson said.
The NFL draft is scheduled for April 23 and goes through April 25. According to some draft analysts, Robinson could get drafted as early as the 4th round.
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