A short quiz for Wan’Dale Robinson:
Nate Robinson?
“I’ve heard Nate Robinson, especially whenever I played basketball when I was young and had the same last name … being passionate, being able to jump a little bit higher than a lot of people. Really whenever you see guys that aren’t as big as everyone else, you just kinda admire what they do.”
Muggsy Bogues?
“Always see the picture of him and [Dikembe] Mutombo, is that what his name is? The big guy that’s like 7-6 or something, there’s always a picture of them two next to each other.”
Manute Bol, maybe?
“Maybe, yeah. It was either Mutombo or Bol,” Robinson said. “I don’t remember which one it was, it was like the shortest one next to the tallest person in the NBA.”
Spud Webb?
“Yup, heard of Spud Webb, being able to dunk and winning the dunk contest and things like that.”
Barry Sanders?
“I mean, if you don’t know Barry Sanders, you aren’t a football fan.”
Wan’Dale Robinson, the 5-foot-8 Swiss Army knife receiver and second-round Giants draft choice out of Kentucky, is asked how tall he was when they called him the Barry Sanders of youth football.
“I probably wasn’t even 4-feet yet, so who knows how big I was?” he says, and laughs.
Tyreek Hill?
“Oh yeah, definitely Tyreek, that’s somebody that I watch on a weekly basis,” he said. “That’s one of the guys that I really like to learn a lot of things from.”
Robinson grew to believe that if the likes of Tyreek Hill and Tavon Austin and De’Anthony Thomas and Steve Smith could dream big and make it, he could, too. He has been 5-8 since he was a high school senior.
“I haven’t changed much,” he said with a laugh.
He was Kentucky Mr. Football at Western Hills High School in Frankfort as a senior anyway.
“That was really one of the knocks was my size,” Robinson said. “Even going in the NFL, that was one of the knocks, but at the end of the day, I know I just gotta be me and gotta be my own person.”
There was a time when he wanted to be taller, but he wasn’t surprised when the growth spurt never materialized.
“My dad, he wasn’t the tallest, he’s 5-9, 5-8, so I knew there wasn’t much of a chance that I was gonna get much taller,” Robinson said. “At the end of the day I just knew I had to make it work. I had a buddy that just went to college and was a freshman All-American and he was shorter than I was — Rondale Moore, if you were asking — so I got to see him and how he excelled, and then at that point I really was able to just be like size at the end of the day doesn’t matter.”
Moore was a 2021 second-round Cardinals draft choice out of Purdue. He’s 5-7. Both are 180 pounds.
“We trained together in high school,” Robinson said.
I think he’s shorter than you.
“Yeah he is (laugh),” Robinson said.
He tunes out any on-field small talk there may be.
“I’ve never gotten anything too crazy,” Robinson said, “because at the end of the day, you have to either be able to tackle me, you have to be able to guard me, so that’s just kinda how I look at it, and if you can’t do those things then you can’t talk too much after that, so …”
He is the heir apparent slot receiver to Sterling Shepard — and likely more in Brian Daboll’s offense. He describes himself this way on the field: “Explosive, tough, dependable.”
An example, please.
“Go watch that last [Citrus] Bowl game [versus Iowa], the final drive … third down … took a shot right up under the chin, right in the chest, they took me out for a play, brought me right back in, and then got the ball two plays in a row and was able to get it down to the 1-yard line and running back ran it in for a touchdown.”
He is driven for his mother Victoria, who raised her child alone while her husband was incarcerated.
“She deals with MS [multiple sclerosis] … she had to take care of me for so long just by herself essentially and struggled a little bit,” Robinson said.
Victoria has had MS since 2006.
“She’ll have days where she feels good, and she’ll have days where she just really can’t get out of the bed,” Robinson said. “Really just want to make sure that she can have the best everything possible and she’s just always taken care of.”
Once he signs his contract, here’s what it will mean for his mother: “I can’t say on the record (smile) right now ’cause it’s a little surprise for her. I got a little something special for her whenever that contract’s signed. I wouldn’t be here right now if it wasn’t for her and all the sacrifices that she had to make.”
Short Giant.
Big heart.
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