AndrewBlakeAfter two days in the National Football League, K.J. Malone decided to give up a potential career in football and move on to a job in law enforcement.
Malone was an undrafted rookie who played college football at Louisiana State University as an offensive lineman, according to the Houston Chronicle.
Malone is the son of NBA Hall of Fame player Karl Malone, who starred with the Utah Jazz and finished as the NBA’s second all-time scoring leader behind Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.
Malone, who is 6-foot-4 and 300 pounds, was placed on the reserved-retired list on Monday, according to the Houston Chronicle.
Malone confirmed he was retiring from football on Twitter.
“Thank you to the Houston Texans for an incredible opportunity,” Malone tweeted. “Due to my previous knee injury during my career at LSU I have not able to recover and decided it was best to stop away from the game of football and take time to heal. With that being said, I will further my career in Law Enforcement. Thank you everyone for all your support.”
In March of 2017, The Advocate did a story on Malone that stated he was very close to giving up his final year of eligibility at LSU to join the U.S. Marshals Service.
Malone has said that the assassination of police officers in Dallas and Baton Rouge in 2017 had an impact on him.
“Just because all of the stuff going on this summer with the cops,” Malone said in 2017. “It made me want to help the community and help the world.”
Karl Malone said his son told him that he wanted to defend national monuments.
“I said, ‘What?’ ” Karl Malone said, according to the 2017 story in The Advocate. “He said, ‘Yeah, Dad. I want to be part of the group defending out national monuments. That’s the front line of freedom. We defend what’s ours.’ ”