At the age of five, Malone was introduced to the sport through field trips with his daycare. Early on he loved to skate fast and was enthralled by watching the local skating team race. In 1990, he began skating competitively as part of the Farmers Branch Flyers. For the last 10 years of his career, he has been coached by Chris Tidwell and represented the Waco Inside Edge.

The highlight of Malone’s career came in 2001 at the Junior World Championships in France where he entered 10 of the 14 races. He returned home with seven gold and three silver medals.

Coming off the high of Junior Worlds, Malone entered the 2002 Las Vegas Invitational as “the one to beat.” His fate took a sharp turn during practice, however, when he fell and fractured his left leg so badly that many thought it would end his career.

“I had a spiral fracture and it tore the ligaments in my legs. The doctor knew it was offline, so they had to put a screw in to pull it back together while the ligaments grew back. That took about four months to heal.”

Malone, sponsored by Rollerblade and Mogema, returned to his skates 10 days before the 2002 Outdoor Nationals and trained hard, qualifying for the Senior Men's World Marathon in Zurich, Switzerland. There he encountered what would be yet another setback. During the competition, he was critically injured as he tried to avoid a 40-skater pileup caused by timing mats, which were covering up wires on the racecourse.

“Everyone started falling and I tried to swerve to the right and ended up tripping over someone and went flying through the air Superman style,” Malone reflects, “I crashed head-first into several boxes on the track. Before I knew it, I was in the hospital.”

The crash left Malone hospitalized for eight days in Switzerland. He broke his upper jaw and completely severed the connecting bones in his face, which required extensive surgery and the insertion of several plates.

“For the first couple minutes after I fell I was thinking to myself, ‘I don’t want to skate anymore, this sucks.’ Then I was like, ‘No, I can’t quit. It’s my life and I love it. I took over the life of skating and that’s the way I want it to be.’”

Nearly six weeks later, he was permitted to skate again and took to the track just one week prior to the 2002 FIRS Senior World Championships in Ostend, Belgium. He was able to skate and finished seventh in the Senior Men's Marathon, his best senior finish to date.

With all that he has endured, Malone feels lucky.

“I have such a great support system. My school, Denton High, has been so supportive, they allow me to miss a lot of time and work with me to get caught up. My sponsors have been awesome. When I broke my face, Rollerblade flew my mom to Switzerland that day. They also paid for my surgery on the spot.”

Life is busy for Malone, who is currently balancing his senior year at Denton High School with a full practice schedule. Workouts typically consist of skating two times daily, six days a week. He supplements his skating with weight training, on-ice practice and hockey.

“It’s good to have all different kinds of skating. Hockey helps me with my sprints and the ice training helps me with the different kinds of form I can use. It all complements each other.”

Malone is slated to be part of the Rollerblade Road World Team next spring. The team, comprised of six men and four women, will train in Europe for six months, racing in all the World Cup series and promoting Rollerblade. Before heading off to Europe, Malone has work to finish.

“This season I want to do really well at the 2003 World Championships. I have a lot to prove this year and I want to be a Senior World Champion.”