How 49ers’ Kaelon Black endured crushing losses to keep his NFL dream

“How Kaelon got the Heisman at Oregon,” written by “K Black” over a decade ago, is showing its age. The corners are dog-eared. The penciled cover illustration, a self-portrait of the author wearing a jersey colored in green crayon, has been smudged.

Its ending, though, still holds some truth in the life story of the San Francisco 49ers rookie running back.

“I got a call from Mike Shanahan,” the closing excerpt read. “They wanted to draft me on the draft night. … The first pick in the 2021 draft, (Washington selects) Kaelon W. Black out of University of Oregon. I told people that I was going to be successful. I know I was going to be successful.”

Pages to the left were lined with handwritten passages, accompanied to the right by hand-drawn pictures by 9-year-old Kaelon. He was tasked with authoring journals as part of a school program. This one put in writing his NFL dream. “It was just so imaginative,” Black told the Chronicle.

The short story included a competition battle with Oregon running back De’Anthony Thomas, beating out Texas A&M quarterback Johnny Manziel for the Heisman Trophy, a shoe endorsement offer by Michael Jordan, a phone call with rapper Meek Mill, and an undefeated national championship season, all bookended by Kyle Shanahan’s dad drafting Black with the No. 1 pick. Life did some rewrites.

Black was close with his maternal grandmother Carolyn Quattlebaum, who moved into the Black household in Virginia Beach, Va., after she retired as a legal secretary in Washington, D.C. If his mom Stacy and dad William worked late, it was just Kaelon, his younger brother Ky’Ron and Carolyn, who would cook dinner for the boys. Those nights they could count on pork shoulder, greens and a mean peach cobbler. 

Carolyn could be a taskmaster when needed. Rather fondly, Black remembered the times he and Ky’Ron would be assigned yard work, cutting grass and pulling weeds at her behest. She was a hard worker.

“Even in her later years she just couldn’t sit down,” Black said. “Always wanted to do something, always walking back and forth in the house.”

Every day for half a decade Black saw Carolyn. She was there for him, and him for her. Before her retirement Carolyn often vacationed in Virginia Beach. She would occasionally book weekend stays at oceanfront hotels for her and the boys. 

Black was 18 when she died in 2020. “That was the first time in my life that I’ve had to face death,” he said. Carolyn had a heart attack one January evening. Kaelon, Ky’Ron and Stacy found her the next morning. “I think it gave (Kaelon) another gear of understanding life,” William said. “You can be here one day and be gone the next.” Kaelon would learn a lot about loss that year.

By the time he was a junior at Salem High School in Virginia Beach, Black had received Power 5 scholarship offers from Virginia Tech and Wake Forest. Those came in a span of two weeks. East Carolina, a Group of 5 program, also offered. It seemed just the beginning of what would be a robust recruitment process. Then things quieted. So as Black entered his senior season, he committed to Virginia Tech. 

His text to the running backs coach at the time was met with no response. Black eventually found out through one of his high school coaches that Virginia Tech rescinded the offer. Having apparently completed their recruiting class at his position, Wake Forest also withdrew. Not to mention East Carolina, whose head coach had been fired. Black had to start from scratch.

“Why am I not getting offers and I’m pretty much one of the best players on my team, one of the best players in the area and in the state?” Black recalled thinking. “Nothing was just making sense at the time.”

Stacy added: “So we just had to put our bootstraps on.”

Kaelon played through his senior season of high school as a two-star prospect and scraped together a couple more Group of 5 scholarships. He committed to Curt Cignetti, the only college head coach he would play for at James Madison and eventually Indiana. His decision came about a month before Carolyn’s death. She was no less proud, Power 5 or not. 

Perhaps that was enough. He still found it difficult to celebrate without her. Black was treated to Buffalo Wild Wings after graduation. Their boneless wings were his favorite. But the meal was bittersweet.

“The graduation dinner was a little different without that person that you’re used to seeing,” Stacy said. 

The hardships mounted. Stacy had recently closed her hair salon temporarily, and then permanently as bills piled up amid the COVID-19 shutdown. It was a difficult time for the Black family. 

Kaelon had to continue. It was time for him to have the college career he dreamed up. He set very specific goals in that book. Running for 452 yards and four touchdowns to “outdo” Manziel, 415 yards against Cal, followed by a Heisman moment captured by 252 yards and five touchdowns across from Wisconsin quarterback Russell Wilson. He wrote in a scene before the Wisconsin game that had him reciting the lyrics to “All Gold Everything” by hip-hop artist Trinidad James. “Gold all in my chain, gold all in my ring, gold all in my watch. Don’t believe me, just watch.”

In reality Oregon never came calling. Cignetti dealt him a fresh script. Black appeared in only two games and redshirted as a true freshman at JMU. He opened the next season as a starter but tore his ACL three games in. His comeback sophomore season included only one start in nine games. Year 4 was his first and last as a full-time college starter before he followed Cignetti to Indiana, where he would finish his college career as a backup.

Stacy regularly reminded Kaelon of her favorite scripture verses from the Bible, Ecclesiastes 9:11 and Matthew 24:13: “The race is not given to the swift nor the strong … but the one who stands firm to the end will be saved.”

Splitting time with a lead back seemed to have a unique effect on Black. He did not waste carries. Last season with the Hoosiers, Black surpassed 1,000 rushing yards (1,040) on fewer than 12 rushes per game for the College Football Playoff national champions. RB1 Ronan Hemby also got to 1,000 yards (1,120). But only two running backs in the Big Ten reached the 1,000-yard mark despite having fewer than 200 carries. Black was one of them, having made a habit of getting vertical at 5-foot-10 and 208 pounds.

The 49ers spent a third-round pick on Black. Widely projected as a Day 3 prospect on most media draft boards, even he was surprised to hear his name called so soon. Shanahan said on the Rich Eisen show the 24-year-old was graded as the second-best running back on their board; Black grew on them, Niners offensive coordinator Klay Kubiak reasoned.

“The more we watched, studied these backs and really stacked them all together, you saw a guy who got the most out of every run that he put on tape,” said Kubiak, who added that Black “was one of the best players on the field” for Indiana’s CFP run.

Ultimately snubbed by the NFL combine, Black used the Senior Bowl to answer for his lack of pass-catching production at Indiana, where over the course of two seasons and 29 games played he managed eight catches for 42 yards and zero touchdowns. General manager John Lynch was apparently moved by the showcase.

Criticism of the pick more often targeted the front office than Black himself. Lynch has yet to hit on a mid-round running back since he showed up in 2017, from Joe Williams to Trey Sermon to Tyrion Davis-Price to Isaac Guerendo, who is still on the roster but buried down the depth chart. The 49ers in each of the past three years have drafted a running back (Guerendo, Jordan James, Black) hoping one can adequately ease the wear and tear on workhorse Christian McCaffrey.

Black detailed this narrative as if he had been studying it closely. Players typically feign ignorance of negative publicity. He addressed it head-on.

“I know one of the things I was hit with before was San Francisco has a habit of drafting running backs in the third to the fifth round, and they don’t play or they don’t pan out, and I’m just trying to change that narrative for myself,” Black said. “I don’t want to get grouped with anybody in the past. I’m really just in my own lane, it’s how I’ve been my whole life.”

In some ways, “How Kaelon got the Heisman” was not complete fiction. Short of being the No. 1 pick, actually winning the Heisman, or signing a signature Jordan shoe deal, Black played for an undefeated national championship team, contributed to a high-powered offense headlined by Heisman quarterback Fernando Mendoza, and was drafted by a Shanahan. Carolyn would be proud.

“My swag can get me there,” one passage read. “Trust me, I know what I’m doing.”