The quickness and suddenness. The cutback ability. The speed in the open field and the nose for the endzone. And the many, many frustrated defenders.
It’s all burned into the memory of so many Hahnville football fans – the signature running style of Anthony “Pooka” Williams.
Williams led Hahnville to its last state championship game appearance in 2017, that playoff run fueled by one of the great postseasons of all time by the then-senior running back. He finished that year with 3,188 rushing yards and 40 total touchdowns – including more than 1,300 rushing yards in the postseason alone over five games. He ended his prep career by rushing for 200 yards or more in all five of his postseason games, topping the 300-yard mark three times.
For the past two years, the former Kansas Jayhawk and Cincinnati Bengal has played for the Orlando Pirates of the Indoor Football League. And just as he was for the Tigers on Friday nights – Williams has proven to be a dominant playmaker for the Pirates.
Williams was named to the All-IFL First Team at two positions, running back and kick returner after a season that saw him place third in the league in rushing yards with 665 while scoring 22 touchdowns overall. He tallied four of those scores as a kick returner as he helped lead Orlando to the league’s Eastern Conference Semifinals.
He opened the season by scoring four touchdowns in a 41-38 shootout victory over New Mexico. Over a four-game span from mid-June to early July, Williams scored 8 times over four games as the Pirates went 3-1.
In his first season with Orlando, Williams led the IFL in rushing with a league-best 795 yards, averaging 16 carries and four receptions a game. He earned All-IFL Second Team honors in his debut season and set a team record for carries in a season with 201 attempts, which led the IFL.
Williams was fifth in the league with 1,274 all-purpose yards and ranked sixth per game with 98 yards per contest. He had 118 yards in kickoff returns and proved he could catch the ball as well as he tied for tenth in the league with 52 receptions, 361 yards and two touchdowns.
Prior to joining the IFL ranks, Williams was a standout kick returner for the DC Defenders of the XFL, helping to spur the team to a division title and to the league championship game, where DC finished as runner-up.
In 2021, Williams made his NFL debut with the Cincinnati Bengals, returning three kicks for 52 yards. He remained with the team until August of 2022.
He made his mark collegiately with the Kansas Jayhawks where, as a freshman in 2018, he ran for 1,125 yards on 161 attempts while scoring seven touchdowns. He also caught 33 passes for 289 yards and two more scores as he was named the Big 12 Offensive Freshman of the Year, as well as being a First Team All-Conference selection. Four times that season, he ran for over 100 yards in a game, including a 252-yard performance against Oklahoma in a nationally televised game.
As a sophomore, he posted four more 100-yard games, highlighted by a 190-yard effort against Texas. At the end of the season, his 1,402 rushing yards made him just the second Kansas running back to have back-to-back 1,000-yard seasons. He also broke Gale Sayers’ Jayhawk record for most rushing yards in a player’s first two seasons, and he was named a second consecutive All-Big 12 First-Team selection.
After four games in the 2020 season, Williams opted out of the remainder of the year to assist his mother in Louisiana, who was battling health issues. Williams Jr. finished his Kansas career with 2,363 rushing yards, ninth all time in program history.
His final season at Hahnville saw him named MVP of the Class 5A All-State team, District 7-5A Offensive MVP, USA Today’s Louisiana Offensive Player of the Year and the state’s Mr. Football. He was the first player from a St. Charles Parish school to earn the honor of Mr. Football and just the third ever from the River Parishes, after Lutcher’s Gavin Webster in 2009 and East St. John’s Ryan Perrilloux in 2004 (
