Tony Picard | Larry Brown Sports

400-pound running back Tony Picard responds to haters

The story of Tony Picard, the 400-pound high school running back from Washington, went viral the past few days after former NFL quarterback Brock Huard tweeted a picture of the high schooler. Since then, Picard has been featured on a number of websites and TV shows.

Though many people think Picard scoring touchdowns and running over much smaller defenders is cool, he’s had his share of detractors. In fact, Picard responded to some of those haters in a thread on ESPN’s SportsNation’s Facebook page about him.

“To the people trying to put me down it don’t bother me I could care less about all the negative comments I’m just doing what my coach asked me to do so that’s why I’m running the ball.and laying nose guard…yeah I’m fat but o well I’m doing what I can….I’m doing what I love and that’s playing football..” Picard wrote.

Why would anyone try to put him down? The guy hasn’t done anything wrong. All he’s done is ball.

Picard was first featured in an article by Dirk Knudsen on Northwest Prep Report on Nov. 1. Knudsen shared that Picard’s high school, White Swan, is on an Indian reservation, and that Picard is part Umatilla-Nez Perce Indian. At the time of Knudsen’s article, White Swan was 8-1 and Picard had scored 15 touchdowns on the season. Per MaxPreps, White Swan is 9-3, though they don’t have individual stats available.

In our original post about Picard, we noted that he is mostly being recruited as a lineman. Below is a cool highlight video of Picard.

White Swan (Wash.) High School senior Tony Picard is practically an unstoppable force. When you take a 6-foot-4, 400-pound kid and give him some football equipment, that result is expected.

Picard’s primary position is running back. Yes, as in the running back that takes the ball from the quarterback and runs toward the end zone with it.

How do high school kids tackle a 400-pound opponent? Teamwork.

“Most teams will sacrifice five guys to stop him: four linemen and a middle linebacker. That leaves three guys on each side to stop the rest of our team,” White Swan football coach Andrew Bush told the Indian Country Today Network. “Everything else opens up: our outside running, our play action, and our entire passing game. We average about 450 yards as a team offensively.”

Picard gets the ball quite a bit, averaging about five yards per carry and 100 yards per game. As you might expect, he started out as a lineman. Bush said he was amazed by Picard’s speed and agility, which he noticed at a football camp when some kids were playing a pickup game of basketball.

“He was so agile and making shots from way out there,” Bush said. “I said ‘I’ve got to use this somehow.’

“It’s so much fun to have him go out [on the field] as a captain and see him shaking hands before the game. [Opponents are] just kind of staring, like ‘Oh my gosh, you’ve got to be kidding me!’”

My Dad started HOF career at White Swan HS w/a stud RB named Kelly Whitefoot. Same school, different RB…Heavyfoot? pic.twitter.com/ayq5YohfbP

— Brock Huard (@BrockESPN) November 16, 2013