NEW HAVEN, Conn. — Ellis Robinson IV is ready for his senior year of high school.
"I'm so pumped," he smirked. "I can't wait."
Football has guided Robinson's journey. As he began to seriously pursue the sport, Robinson left Connecticut for Iona Prep in New York, where he spent two years before heading to IMG Academy in Bradenton, Fla. That's where Robinson realized that his position was in the secondary.
"I always played both sides of the ball," Robinson explained. "I started at safety and then I moved down to corner. That's how it transitioned to me playing corner."
That was a move that gained Robinson a lot of attention. He committed to Georgia as a five-star recruit, and several months later, ESPN ranked Robinson as the top high school football player in the country.
"I worked hard for this," Robinson beamed. "Just seeing my name and everything I did pay off, it just feels good."
Robinson first developed an interest in football by watching his brother Damian Henderson Jr. play quarterback.
"Every game my brother played in, I was there," Robinson recalled.
Robinson was there when his brother's Hillhouse team won the 2016 Class M state title. By that time, Robinson - six years his brother's junior - had already set out on a football journey, aided by a premonition by his father, Ellis Robinson III.
"I always saw something in him at an early age," said Robinson III. "Before he was born, I told my wife that he's going to go into the league."
Robinson III predicted that his son would play for nationals, and he had another strong feeling that Robinson IV would end up at IMG Academy. Both came true. But when IMG Academy called at the beginning of his sophomore year, Robinson III told his son to wait.
"I always know when he has work to do and he can get better," Robinson III explained. "There were areas I felt he could get better at, and I said 'This is what I need to see from you this year.' Sure enough, he was the best player in the state."
It wasn't long before his son would earn the status of the best player in the country and find himself in a position to suit up for the National Champions of college football. But Robinson IV knows that these are just steps of a longer journey; that's what his father reminds him.
"This journey is a rainbow," Robinson III illustrates. "At the end of this rainbow is a pot of gold. He knows where we started from, and now we're starting the downslope."
It's a metaphor designed to keep Robinson IV focused on his path. And the advice coming from his mother, Nicole Robinson, is that this journey is bigger than just him.
"I tell him all the time, 'Kids are looking up to you. You are an example for the youth here. In Connecticut, that's unheard of."
So what's next for Ellis Robinson IV?
"Show everybody what I can do really. My last year of high school. Show everybody that I'm the number one player in the country for a reason."
Jonah Karp is the sports director at FOX61 News. He can be reached at jkarp@fox61.com. Follow him on Facebook and Twitter.
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