SANTA CLARA, Calif. — During his retirement news conference in 2022, longtime Seattle Seahawks linebacker K.J. Wright said he didn’t know what his future held but that he was sure he’d never get into coaching.It took roughly 18 months for him to change his mind.During the 2024 offseason, the San Francisco 49ers hired their former rival as a quality control coach, the bottom rung on the NFL coaching ladder. This spring, he took a major step up when he was promoted to linebackers coach.And it doesn’t appear as if Wright — warm, bright and teeming with energy — will stop there.“K.J. can take this as far as he wants to,” longtime mentor Ken Norton Jr. said in a recent phone interview. “He understands that if he’s gonna be a great coach, the little things matter. It’s the little things that take care of big things. He doesn’t have an ego that gets in the way.“If K.J. wants to be the greatest linebackers coach ever, if he wants to be a defensive coordinator, if he wants to be a head coach — it’s all out there for him.”Three rookies who could start for the 49ersMatt BarrowsNorton, the Washington Commanders’ linebackers coach, knows better than anyone what Wright is capable of. He had the same job in Seattle in 2011 when the Seahawks drafted Wright — who, at nearly 6 feet 4, had atypical size for a linebacker — in the fourth round out of Mississippi State.He immediately made the rookie his special project.Norton didn’t like Wright’s footwork. A linebacker’s steps should be short and precise so he can operate in tight spaces. Wright had long legs and deep strides. To Norton, he ran like a deer.“So I had him put these bands on his legs,” he recalled. “And they were like three, four inches apart. And I made him wear ’em to practice, made him wear ’em on special teams. And everybody was giving him a hard time: ‘What are you doing with braces on your legs? What’s wrong with you? You know slavery’s over, right?'”There was more ribbing in the linebackers’ meeting room, where Norton introduced segments he called “K.J.’s Quote of the Day” and “K.J. Says” — anything to put the then-22-year-old in the front of the room and get him used to communicating with his teammates.To Norton’s delight, Wright never balked at any of it. Instead, he was a bottomless well, taking as much coaching as Norton could pour into him.“This went on for the whole year,” Norton said of the leg bands Wright wore in practice. “And I mean everybody gave it to him. They just rode him. And he did not waver. He wore those things every single day. I realized he believes in what I’m telling him. He believes in me. And I was like, ‘I’ve got to make sure I show up for this guy. I’ve got to bring my A-game.'”Most linebackers struggle to learn one position during their initial season. Wright ended up starting games at all three spots in 2011, finishing with 65 tackles, 10 of them behind the line of scrimmage.“Rookies don’t do that,” Norton said. “He came in on a mission.”K.J. Wright (No. 50) faced the 49ers in his first NFL game in September 2011. (Thearon W. Henderson / Getty Images)Wright’s footwork became one of the strongest facets of his game. He was adept at diagnosing offensive plays, often arriving to plug a hole at the line of scrimmage just as the ball carrier was trying to squeeze through it.And the sessions at the front of the linebackers’ room paid off, too, as his talented Legion of Boom teammates began to turn to him when they had questions about the defense. Norton said if there was an 8 p.m. team meeting the night before a game, Wright would show up at 6 p.m. On practice days, coach and protege would arrive at the facility at 6 a.m. The goal, Norton said, was to supply his mentee with as much information as possible, to give him total command.“I wanted him to feel invincible out there,” he said.Pretty soon, other teammates began coming in early for what Norton described as a daily breakfast club.“What I loved most about Nort was he took the extra time with me outside of that block that we have as a football team,” Wright said. “‘Hey, meet me here at 6 o’clock in the morning.’ That ain’t on the schedule. But he met with me there. He was honest with me. He embarrassed me sometimes in front of the room. I didn’t like it. But when you push a player, they have no choice but to rise to the occasion, or they’re gonna fold.”Wright, who turns 37 on July 23, said he’s started his own breakfast club with his pupils, especially Tatum Bethune and Jalen Graham, who are in his office every morning.The 49ers’ top two linebackers — Fred Warner and Dre Greenlaw, both 29 years old — are firmly entrenched as starters. Beyond that, the unit is full of players who are 25 or younger, like Bethune, Graham, Nick Martin and rookies Jaden Dugger and Larry Worth III. Those linebackers will be jockeying for spots on the 53-man roster this summer, and it’s now Wright’s job to sort them out.Asked if he shows the youngsters clips of himself — the 49ers’ defense is similar to what the Seahawks ran 15 years ago — Wright admits he nearly did when putting together a recent edge-setting montage.“But I didn’t do it,” he said. “I probably do need to do it. ‘This is what it looks like, guys.’ … So that may come about. But I don’t want to be that coach, though.”Wright’s path seems similar to that of another decorated linebacker-turned-San Francisco assistant: DeMeco Ryans. Like Wright, the 49ers initially wanted Ryans to spend a couple of seasons as a quality control coach. That plan changed in 2018 when, a week after the 49ers hired Norton as their inside linebackers coach, he left for Seattle to become their defensive coordinator. Ryans took over as linebackers coach instead, was promoted to defensive coordinator three years later and was then hired as the Houston Texans’ head coach two years after that.Does Wright envision that kind of trajectory?“Ahhhhhhhh,” he said, pausing four seconds before answering.“I do know this,” he finally continued. “I do want to be a really good linebackers coach, and I do know I want to be a defensive coordinator. I for sure know that. And so I’m working toward that. And we’ll see. We’ll see once it gets past that point. Ask me again once I become defensive coordinator.”Ironically, Norton, who is Wright’s biggest champion, initially discouraged him from getting into coaching.“As a decade-plus player, the game is so hard on your body, you need to take a break, travel and see the world,” Norton advised. “There’s so many things to do. You’ve made enough money that you don’t have to do this.“That’s kind of the trick I play on them: I try to talk ’em out of it. And if he talks himself back into it, it lets you know how passionate he is, how seriously he wants to do it.”Wright said retirement simply didn’t fit his personality. Twenty-four hours felt like 48 to him. And hardly a year and a half after he vowed not to join the coaching ranks, he was signing a contract with the 49ers.His wife, Nathalie, understood.“She knows where my heart is,” he said. “She knows what I want to do. And she’s like, ‘Go. Get out of my house! You’re getting on my nerves! Go work!’ So I said, ‘All right, babe. I’m gonna try this thing.'”