LINCOLN, Neb. — The first time Dale Robinson went to prison, his wife told their son Wan’Dale that his father was away at school.

It was the easiest explanation for a toddler. And when Dale was released after approximately four years of a 72-month sentence for possession with intent to distribute cocaine, the former star athlete doted daily on Wan’Dale.

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“We were like hand and glove, Batman and Robin,” Dale said.

He used the birth certificate of a friend’s older son to get Wan’Dale, at age 5, into tackle football a year before he was eligible in Louisville, Ky., 60 miles west of their home in Frankfort. Dale showered Wan’Dale with gifts, funded by the many thousands of dollars Dale collected monthly from selling drugs.

In July 2007, police caught him again, in Lexington, Ky., with nearly five kilograms of cocaine. Robinson faced up to 40 years in federal prison before agreeing in April 2008 to enter a guilty plea in U.S. District Court. What followed was the most difficult moment of his life, Dale said, as he met with 7-year-old Wan’Dale to tell him of the 10-year sentence.

“The day that I walked away from that glass,” Dale said, “that was the day I said I’ve got to change. That look in his eyes, that made me change. It was hard. It was crushing. But I made my bed. I had to lay in it. That’s the thing I explained to him.”

Dale Robinson was released from prison in July 2015. He spent the next six months living in a halfway house. A curfew forced him to leave football games before their conclusion in that freshman year for Wan’Dale at Western Hills High School in Frankfort.

But Dale was there, determined never to miss another important moment of his son’s life.

Four years later and three games into Wan’Dale’s freshman season at Nebraska as a starting wide receiver, Dale, 43, holds tight to that promise. He has rebuilt his life, remarried and created a nonprofit foundation to improve outcomes for youth impacted by incarceration. Dale opened a gym, built his own fitness program and recently wrote a book about his experiences and philosophy on life.

He counsels former convicts and speaks in public about his transformation. And there’s a big piece of him in Wan’Dale.

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“It means the world that he’s here,” Wan’Dale said, “just knowing that I grew up without him. It’s been really good to have him in my corner. The way that I carry myself and the way that I am, that comes from him.”

Young Wan’Dale struggled to understand after his father’s second sentencing that Dale would not be coming home soon. Both of them cried on the day Dale delivered the news.

“My dad was leaving me,” Wan’Dale said.

They had done everything together during those past 19 months — the only time in Wan’Dale’s first 14 years that he remembers Dale as a free man. Wan’Dale, at age 5, grew fond of watching the NFL Network. Dale recalls watching on television the Bowl Championship Series title game in January 2007 between Florida and Ohio State, days after Wan’Dale turned 6, and how they fixated on it together.

It helps explain Wan’Dale’s understanding of the game at age 18.

“He’s just got the savvy,” Nebraska running backs coach Ryan Held said. “He’s a football junkie. We knew he was a fast blinker from the recruiting process, just sitting down on his visit.”

Robinson, at 5-foot-10 and 190 pounds, ranked as the No. 1 all-purpose back nationally in the Class of 2019, according to the 247Sports Composite, and the top player overall in Kentucky. He enrolled early at Nebraska last winter and began right away to learn wide receiver and running back assignments, attending meetings and film review with both position groups.

On the Huskers’ first play from scrimmage this season, he took a handoff from quarterback Adrian Martinez. He’s carried eight times in three games and caught nine passes. Robinson’s kickoff-return average ranks second in the Big Ten.

His versatility impacts opponents’ defense of Nebraska. Coach Scott Frost praised Robinson’s acumen for the game and his sense for how to move with the football. Teammates say they expect him to break out soon.

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“It’s only up from here for him,” Martinez said.

But there’s something else about Robinson, not entirely different than the mentality displayed by Martinez a year ago as a true freshman thrust into a key role. Robinson carries himself with assuredness rare for a young player. He’s not awed by the big stage of the sport and its place in football-crazy Nebraska.

“I’m used to it,” he said, “always having eyes on me, everybody watching every move I make on the football field — or not on the football field.”

Dale describe his son’s “football IQ” as through the roof.

“He’s a person who just has ‘it,’ ” the elder Robinson said. “I think it centers from what he’s been through. If you met him, you wouldn’t have any idea about any of it.”

Dale grew up in Frankfort and attended Franklin County High School. He played football for two years at Western Kentucky under coach Jack Harbaugh, father of now-famous coaches John and Jim, and backed up Willie Taggart at quarterback.

In his book, “The Making of a Guru,” Dale wrote that he left school before his junior season because he knew he’d test positive for marijuana and refused to give up his usage. His decisions upset his mother, Wanda Joyce Robinson, for whom Dale’s foundation and Wan’Dale, his second son, are named. Wanda died at age 45 of heart disease, and Dale spiraled more deeply into trouble.

“Greed and selfishness defined and guided me,” Dale wrote in the book.

From an early age, Dale connected with the Juett family — Bill and his wife, Paula, and their daughters, Kelley, Mary Beth and Amy. Bill coached softball in the community and assisted with high school football. His two younger daughters worked as managers for Franklin County when Dale starred at quarterback.

After Dale left Western Kentucky and got into trouble, he drifted from the Juetts. But upon his release from prison the first time, he reconnected with Kelley and her husband, Mike Hawkins. Their son, Logan, grew close with Wan’Dale, playing football with him through their time at Western Hills.

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So when Dale was convicted a second time, he asked Mike for assistance with Wan’Dale — to coach him and help Dale’s wife, Vickie, who has multiple sclerosis, look after their son.

The relationship with the Hawkins family deeply impacted Wan’Dale’s life.

“He was in my home a lot,” Kelley Hawkins said.

Mike Hawkins was the disciplinarian. Kelley was simply like a second mother. The Hawkins’ kids, Logan and older twin sisters, Makayla and Torey, see Wan’Dale as their brother.

“He is our family,” Kelley Hawkins said. “We are his family. And we are Dale and Vickie’s family. We’re all together. I consider Wan’Dale to be one of my children. That’s just how it is.”

The Hawkins traveled to Lincoln for the Huskers’ Aug. 31 opener to be with Vickie, Dale and his wife, Taylor. Makayla flew to Colorado for Nebraska’s Week 2 game. Vickie and Dale will be there Saturday night as the Huskers visit Illinois. They’re all planning to convene again next week as Nebraska hosts sixth-ranked Ohio State.

Dale, of course, attends every game.

“I wouldn’t care if it’s on the moon,” he said.

During his second prison term at federal facilities in Kentucky and New Jersey, Dale stayed in close contact with Vickie and Wan’Dale. He also communicated often with Kelley Hawkins. She knew of his plans from early in that imprisonment to make dramatic changes his life.

“I never had a doubt,” Hawkins said. “I’m sure people did have doubts. I just did not. I will say this about Dale: He has never veered from trying to do what is best for his sons.”

Dale’s older son, Dalevon, is set to graduate from Eastern Kentucky this year and plans to work in juvenile corrections.

Vickie Davis, Wan’Dale’s mother and Dale’s ex-wife, hurts daily over the absence of her Wan’Dale at home.

“He doesn’t miss home, or at least I can’t tell,” she said. “I can’t believe he’s 18 and he’s in school, that he’s in Nebraska. Sometimes, I just sit and cry.”

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Wan’Dale has adjusted well to college, she said. The time without his father as a kid taught him to adapt.

“He’s not like his mama,” Vickie said. “I don’t like change.”

But she’s happy that he’s at Nebraska. Wan’Dale committed initially last November to Kentucky. Almost immediately, he was unsure. He flipped to the Huskers a month later. His mother was against the option to stay home from the start.

“I wanted him to get out of Kentucky,” she said. “I did not want him to stay, I guess, because I believe that’s where his dad made his mistake. I did not want it to happen to him. I’m not saying it would, but I think that was my thought.”

Dale’s advice in that time last fall?

“Easy is not always what’s best,” he said. “Go to Nebraska, where you can be a man.”

His father’s troubled past drives Wan’Dale, he said, as does the message conveyed regularly to him by Dale, whose own father drove him hard in athletics but rarely exhibited the love that Dale strives to show Wan’Dale.

“You’re the one to break the cycle,” Wan’Dale said his dad tells him.

“It gives me motivation,” Wan’Dale said, “to go out there and prove people wrong who think differently about my family or think differently about me. The experiences we went through, they weren’t the best, but the lessons we learned got us here today.”

Wan’Dale drew attention in June when University police cited him for possession of marijuana, but he ultimately wasn’t charged because of insufficient evidence and the case was dropped by the county. He was not publicly disciplined by the team.

In his book, Dale writes that he went down the path of selling drugs because he thought he was winning. He wanted to buy himself and his kids all they desired.

“I could give them everything they wanted except the father they really needed,” he wrote.

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Until these past four years, that is.

Around his busy schedule, Dale takes 12 hours of coursework at Kentucky State in a bid to complete his degree. He said he wants to set an example for the children in his foundation. Always, he said, he brings the conversation back to his story of rejuvenation.

“I have a platform,” Dale said. “I didn’t ask for it. But I do, just like Wan’Dale has a platform. He can impact a lot of people. They see him, with what he’s been through, and say, ‘if he can do this, I can do anything.’”

(Top photo: Nati Harnik / AP)