The winter prior to Jeff Robinson's senior season at Idaho, then-Vandals football coach John L. Smith came up to the star defensive end, handed him a football and gave him a piece of advice.

"Learn how to long snap," Smith told Robinson. "It will help you make a roster (in the NFL)."

Robinson worked on his new craft in his final season in Moscow, and he became the long snapper for the Denver Broncos the following year.

"I wasn't recruited very heavily out of high school (Ferris, in Spokane), so even though I had a lot of success at Idaho, I kind of always figured I was marginal at best," Robinson said the other night, in a phone interview from Seattle. "Really soon after I got into the NFL I realized that I was going to have to do something else besides be a defensive end, to hang around and stay on rosters."

By being able to long snap, as well as catch the occasional touchdown pass as a tight end, Robinson was able to last 15 seasons with four different teams in the NFL, and helped the St. Louis Rams win the Super Bowl in 2000.

And this Saturday, Robinson will be among six people inducted into the Idaho Hall of Fame, in ceremonies at the Best Western Coeur d'Alene Inn.

"I was honored" to get the letter, said the 6-foot-4 Robinson, whose family has a cabin at Priest Lake, and said his time at the University of Idaho was the best time of his life. "So even though I lived in Spokane, Northern Idaho has been a very big part of my life."

FOOTBALL ALMOST wasn't part of Robinson's future, after graduating from Ferris in 1988.

He had no scholarship offers, and planned to attend the University of Washington and walk on to the baseball team.

But Idaho finally offered him a scholarship just prior to fall camp beginning in August. Bill Diedrich, the offensive coordinator and quarterbacks coach at Idaho who had coached some of Robinson’s older brothers in high school, came to Spokane and convinced Jeff to come to Moscow and play for head coach Keith Gilbertson.

Robinson turned out to be a pretty good late recruit for the Vandals. A defensive end, he became the school’s all-time leader in sacks with 57 1/2. He was a three-time All-Big Sky selection, a two-time conference defensive player of the year, and a two-time “Little” All-American. Robinson was also the Vandals’ long snapper as a senior.

“I saw the wisdom in it right away. I really appreciated the wisdom once I got there (to the NFL),” Robinson said. “The offensive tackles were a whole lot bigger and more athletic than they were in the Big Sky.

“I never envisioned I would play as long as I did. I was hoping to get two or three years, but I knew if I long snapped it was my ticket to staying around longer than that.”

He was picked by the Broncos in the fourth round of the 1993 NFL draft, the 98th overall selection. He spent four seasons there, as the long snapper as well as at defensive end.

“When I got to Denver it just so happened that there wasn’t anyone there that could (long snap), so I got better fast, and kept working on it, and it got to where it was keeping me around,” Robinson said. “It was a good vehicle for me, so I didn’t really care if they called me a long snapper, or whatever they called me, as long as I was still on the roster, that was good enough for me.”

At Idaho, Robinson snapped for punts, but hadn’t yet mastered snapping for PATs or field goals.

“I was too bad at that,” he recalled. “Awful. End over end. The biggest key of PAT and field goal snaps was to have a spiral, and I couldn’t seem to fathom that concept. I was like Phil Niekro (the knuckleball pitcher), throwing it back there to the holder, which made it hard for them to catch.”

At Denver, Robinson said he was “blessed” to work with Jerry Frei, the Broncos’ director of college scouting and an apparent “long snapping guru,” he said.

“It wasn’t his job, but ... we worked on it religiously to the point where I got competent for my rookie year,” Robinson said. “And then after that I just kept trying to dial it in.”

By his third season, he was able to snap for PATs and field goals as well.

IN 1997, Robinson signed with the St. Louis Rams as an unrestricted free agent.

Late in the 1998 season, he was switched from defense to tight end because of injuries at that position.

“I said yeah, I’d do it,” Robinson said. “I just kinda ran around and I could follow the arrow on a card pretty well. ... It was a chance for me to avoid going against Orlando Pace (an all-pro offensive tackle) some more, so I was fine with doing that.”

He became the third tight end, used mainly in goal line situations.

Late in that season, Robinson caught the first of his eight career TD passes, a 4-yarder from Steve Bono against the Carolina Panthers.

In 1999, he was happy to play quite a bit on offense, as the second tight end.

“It was fun for me. I knew long snapping was my meal ticket but I knew it wasn’t football,” Robinson said. “And being able to play tight end was definitely being able to play football again, as opposed to just walking out there on fourth down and doing my thing.

“I wasn’t complaining about it ... but it certainly wasn’t football, wasn’t what I was used to playing. When I got a chance to get out on the field and hit people, and be hit, it was nice.”

IT WAS also in the 1999 season when the Rams beat the Tennessee Titans 24-17 to win the Super Bowl.

“It was a pretty magical year, and St. Louis is such a great sports town, it was definitely the pinnacle,” Robinson recalled. “We were pretty confident with Trent (Green at quarterback), and when he got hurt ... oh man. When Kurt (Warner) came on we had no idea — obviously, no one did.

“But a lot of people were in their prime of their careers. Marshall Faulk had come over. Isaac Bruce. Az(-Zahir) Hakim. Ricky Proehl. Torry Holt was a rookie. We just had so many incredible athletes, it just kinda flowed.

“I was a sports geek growing up; I dreamt my whole life about what it was like winning a Super Bowl. When I grew up Pittsburgh was playing Dallas and I was always a Steelers fan. I thought about it my whole life, and when it happened it was better than anything you could have dreamt.”

Robinson wound up playing in two Super Bowls in three seasons during his five-year stint in St. Louis.

Robinson says he hasn’t worn his Super Bowl ring much since 2000, but he plans to bring it with him to Coeur d’Alene this weekend, where he will be inducted along with Jake Plummer, Ian Waltz, Irene Matlock, Ed Cheff and Ray Faraca.

Robinson signed with the Dallas Cowboys in 2002. A torn ACL in training camp ended that first season early, but he returned to play in ’03 and ’04.

He returned to the Rams for five games in 2005, then spent 2006 out of football. He played in three games for the Seahawks in 2007, all 16 with Seattle in ’08 and was brought back late in the 2009 season when the starting long snapper suffered a collapsed lung.

These days, Jeff and his wife, Laura, run 5focus, a movement studio in Seattle which offers physical therapy, massages and group exercise classes, etc.

So is Robinson officially retired?

“Yeah ... for now ... absolutely, I’m done,” he said. “I joked about it when they called me back three years in a row, that I was a mercenary. But now, at age 41, I can officially say I’m done.

“It was getting a little bit like I was the sick wildebeest on the Serengeti when I was running down the field,” Robinson said of covering kicks. “The writing was on the wall; it was time for me to quit.”

Mark Nelke is sports editor of The Press. He can be reached at 664-8176, Ext. 2019, or via e-mail at mnelke@cdapress.com.