{"id":155671,"date":"2025-09-20T02:30:27","date_gmt":"2025-09-20T02:30:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/155671\/"},"modified":"2025-09-20T02:30:27","modified_gmt":"2025-09-20T02:30:27","slug":"why-7-foot-3-jordan-wilmore-left-his-pro-basketball-career-behind-to-pursue-his-true-passion-policing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/155671\/","title":{"rendered":"Why 7-foot-3 Jordan Wilmore left his pro basketball career behind to pursue his true passion, policing"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Kemah, Texas\u00a0\u2014 At 7-foot-3, Jordan Wilmore has always had lofty goals, but ones that he kept mostly to himself.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;It was hard for me to share, like, my dreams or, you know, the stuff I wanted to do growing up because it was, &#8216;Well, you just got to focus on basketball because it can make you millions,'&#8221; the 24-year-old Wilmore explained to CBS News.<\/p>\n<p>So for years, he did focus on basketball, like his friends and family insisted.<\/p>\n<p>A Memphis, Tennessee, native, he played college basketball at Missouri, Northwestern State and Austin Peay State University. He then played professionally overseas, with his last stop in the Philippines last year.\u00a0 \u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Ever since he first hit his head on a door jamb, people have been telling Wilmore he should play professional basketball. But other people can&#8217;t dictate your dreams \u2014 and basketball was never his passion.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I&#8217;ve always liked to help other people,&#8221; Wilmore said. &#8220;That&#8217;s just who I am. I would do anything to help out whoever I can. There is nothing really else I want to do.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Which is why Wilmore is now, almost certainly, America&#8217;s tallest police recruit. Once he graduates from the police academy, he&#8217;ll go to work in Kemah, Texas, located just southeast of Houston, where Kemah Police Chief Raymond Garivey is already preparing for his arrival.<\/p>\n<p>Garivey has been scouring the country for a uniform big enough, and a cruiser that won&#8217;t crush him.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Knees are touching the dash,&#8221; Garivey said after Wilmore climbed into one particular police cruiser. &#8220;It&#8217;s very, very tight.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>But Garivey says he&#8217;s willing to make any accommodation necessary for an officer this dedicated.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;He wants to serve,&#8221; Garivey said. &#8220;He truly wants to make a difference. I&#8217;m proud that he chose the thin, blue line.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Wilmore says that if he received a phone call from an NBA team, he&#8217;d turn it down, he wouldn&#8217;t even think about it.<\/p>\n<p>Said Wilmore, &#8220;No, I stay here.&#8221;\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\n        More from CBS News\n      <\/p>\n<p>      <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cbsnews.com\/team\/steve-hartman\/\" class=\"content-author__name\" data-invalid-url-rewritten-http=\"\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Steve  Hartman<\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"content-author__text\">Steve Hartman is a CBS News correspondent. He brings viewers moving stories from the unique people he meets in his weekly award-winning feature segment &#8220;On the Road.&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Kemah, Texas\u00a0\u2014 At 7-foot-3, Jordan Wilmore has always had lofty goals, but ones that he kept mostly to&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":155672,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[574],"tags":[64,63,726,44037,85,3370],"class_list":{"0":"post-155671","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-basketball","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-basketball","11":"tag-police-officers","12":"tag-sports","13":"tag-texas"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/155671","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=155671"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/155671\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/155672"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=155671"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=155671"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=155671"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}