Former Lineman Turned Counselor

His second time standing in a confetti storm had just come and gone. His Giants had just experienced another Super Sunday, again against the Patriots. Kareem McKenzie was one happy right tackle. 

- Brian Heyman

And then the football joy was over for a 32-year-old Jersey guy — born in Trenton, raised in Willingboro and played in East Rutherford, competing for four years with the Jets and then seven with the Giants.

He soon learned that the Giants didn’t want him back for the 2012 season. McKenzie found that to be a very disappointing news flash. There were other teams that wanted him to come in and try out, but he admitted that “a bit of my ego” blocked that prospect.

“From my own personal perspective, I just played 24 games in an NFL season and was a Super Bowl champion,” McKenzie said. “I think that body of work could’ve spoken for itself. And playing for another team, realizing that you just won a Super Bowl and cannot defend that title, was a little distressful.”

So his NFL days were done, just like that. What was he going to do next?

“It’s depressing because you really don’t have an idea of what it is that you can actually do, because the skills that we have on the football field don’t translate into the work environment,” McKenzie said. “There’s no profession out there besides the armed services where you are basically putting your body on the line in the most existential sense and in the armed services putting your life on the line for a cause and/or a belief system.”

McKenzie ultimately decided to become a counselor to try to help the cause of former players in a similar situation, to listen and assist them in coping and handling the transition game to the next chapter of their lives.