San Francisco Chronicle - (Sunday)
49ers’ Wilson embodies contrast between light and dark
The vicious runner who teammates have often said transports to a “dark place” during games has a burning desire to be a “light.”
Jeff Wilson grew up attending church and playing the drums in a worship band near his hometown of Elkhart, Texas. And the San Francisco 49ers running back, who ranks ninth in the NFL in rushing entering Sunday’s game at Atlanta, pointed to his faith when asked why he inspires widespread affection.
Offensive line coach Chris Foerster terms the ever-upbeat Wilson one of his “favorite guys.” And he relayed how his 22-year-old son reacted this summer after meeting Wilson during training camp.
“Immediately, his favorite player was Jeff Wilson,” Foerster said. “You can’t help it.”
Head coach Kyle Shanahan? He has said he respects Wilson as much as any player he’s ever coached, partly due to his infectious optimism: “I think we all feel that way,” Shanahan said. “Our wives who’ve met him feel that way.”
Tommy Perry? The man who recruited Wilson to North Texas and was his position coach for his first three seasons describes him as one of his “all-time favorite people.”
The effervescent Wilson, who spent part of warm-ups Thursday playing air guitar to Guns N’ Roses’ “Sweet Child O’ Mine,” explains all the love by discussing his roots. The lessons he learned at Morning Star Baptist and the Antioch Church in Palestine, about 10 miles away from Elkhart. And the values that were instilled when he was growing up on desolate Anderson County Road 100.
“Put others first,” Wilson said. “Be a light. It was just how my parents raised me.”
How Wilson was raised explains his popularity. But where he was raised helps explain the parts of Wilson’s personality that aren’t as warm and fuzzy.
There’s a dark place Wilson enters. Graham Harrell, his offensive coordinator for his final two seasons at North Texas, recalled how Wilson once drilled a loafing teammate in the back during practice. And Perry remembers how Wilson, all rage and fury, tore through the defense and flashed attitude after he was challenged during his first college practice.
“He came up to me and was like, ‘What are you talking about now?’ ” Perry said.
Both Harrell and Perry are Texas natives who understand the ethos of that re
gion where Wilson was raised. Both point to his hometown when discussing what has driven his unlikely success.
At 6-foot and 213 pounds, Wilson possesses the violent, lowerthe-boom-on-linebackers style of an even bigger back. And he has a passion for the game that has allowed him to persevere on his lightly recruited, mid-majorcollege path. Wilson is the only undrafted player among the NFL’s top 10 rushers.
Perry grew up in Tyler, which is about 60 miles from Elkhart and is the hometown of Hall of Fame running back Earl Campbell. Adrian Peterson, who ranks fifth in NFL history in rushing yards, is from nearby Palestine. Elkhart (pop. 1,287) is a hamlet in East Texas’ piney woods, 125 miles and a few worlds away from Dallas.
“Jeff wasn’t poor, but he’s East Texas,” Perry said. “Just like me. He’s from the backwoods. Where we’re from, high school football is everything. It’s our personality. It’s who we are. How we play on Friday nights represents our family and our hometown. Football just means so much to him.”
Said Harrell, who has a home in the region: “Jeffrey grew up in a little bitty town in the deep sticks of East Texas. That’s just in his DNA. You can’t change him. He’s a friendly guy. You enjoy being around him. But when it’s time to play football or do anything physical, he’s just a tough dude.”
Before Perry met Wilson, he recruited a defensive end from Elkhart High. That teenager arrived on a horse to meet him at school. When Perry asked Wilson’s mom for directions before his first in-home recruiting visit, he was told to turn right at the light as part of his instructions.
“I was like, ‘Which light?’ ” Perry recalled. “And she said, ‘The light.’ This is word for word: ‘These are the directions. Take a right at the light. Go over the train tracks and take a left at the big tree. You’re going to think that’s not a road, but that’s a road. You’ll see our house on the left.’ ”
Wilson smiled when asked about it, saying, “You can’t pass up the house because there aren’t too many down there. Look for the one with the white fence and then you’re there.”
His dad, Jeff Sr., is a correctional officer and former running back at Texas-Arlington who led his teenage son through old-school workouts, often in the early morning. Wilson lugged a tractor tire, attached to a rope, in their front yard. He lifted concrete weights. And Jeff Sr. would stand at the top of Crockett Road with a stopwatch, timing his son as he sprinted up the steep incline.
Wilson Sr. said the body transforming labor is what allowed his son to adopt the physical style he’d flashed years ago at UTA.
“We pretty much run the same,” he said, laughing: “He just has a few more moves than I did.”
Wilson was a Class 2A allstate selection in both of his final two seasons at Elkhart, rushing for 5,078 yards and 62 touchdowns. Perry attended several of Wilson’s games and made a strong pitch to sign him. But his enthusiasm was met with a mostly tepid response from the rest of the staff, which had concerns about Elkhart’s level of competition.
Perry eventually landed Wilson late in the recruiting period. And he recalls some of his colleagues giving him I-told-you-so looks after Wilson appeared out his depth in his lackluster practice debut as a true freshman in 2014.
“I pulled Jeff aside and said, ‘Man, you came from a little bitty town, you’re running soft and nobody thinks you belong here,’ ” Perry said. “And then he just took it to their starting defense. … He’s always so warm. And always so generous. Except for on the practice field. And except for on the game field.”
Wilson’s college career is roughly bookended by stories of the nice guy’s nastiness.
During his senior season, Harrell had players doing updowns during practice as penance for penalties. And North Texas’ top wide receiver was going through the motions, not placing his chest on the ground, even after he’d been called out by Harrell.
“Out of nowhere here comes Jeffrey flying across the middle of the circle and he speared this guy,” Harrell said. “This dude’s helmet comes flying off. And Jeffrey’s like, ‘Hey, hit your chest.’ ”
“That’s rare nowadays. I feel like that’s old school. Teammates holding each other accountable. I’m not saying you want to have guys fighting, but he did care so much about the game. He cared about winning. He cared about doing things the right way.”
Wilson isn’t known to have decked any teammates in his five NFL seasons, but he has bowled over his share of defenders when given opportunities coming off the bench.
In 2020, when injuries elevated him to the starting lineup, he led the 49ers with 600 rushing yards and averaged 4.8 yards per carry. This season, with starter Elijah Mitchell sidelined with a knee injury, Wilson has averaged 103.7 total yards and 5.4 yards per carry in four fill-in games while flashing big-play ability: He’s the only NFL player to have at least one carry of 30-plus yards in three consecutive games.
Wilson, however, maintained the blocking was the most impressive part of his career-long, 41-yard run in last week’s 49ers win at Carolina.
“Shoot,” he said while surrounded by reporters, “even y’all could have run through that hole.”
It was the type of answer, marked by humor and humility, that has endeared Wilson to so many. Yes, his faith has inspired him to be a light — when he’s not entering dark places.
But his friendliness can also be traced to the sparsely populated area that made him tough: Growing up, he said, he rarely met strangers.
“Man, half the people in Palestine, I’m related to,” he said. “And I think I probably grew up playing pee-wee football with most of the people in Elkhart.”