Albino Paralympian known as the ‘White Tiger’ reveals the hurtful nickname he was given at school

Australian Paralympic hopeful Chad Perris has spoken out about the cruel nickname he was given during his school days.

Perris, 32, has established himself as a speed phenomenon since leaving school and has been nicknamed the White Tiger.

But the Australian hero was bullied throughout his upbringing and mocked by his contemporaries for his albinism.

He told Wide World of Sports that he would be called ‘Casper’, like Casper the ghost, because of his condition.

“I think there’s a difference between being called names that are bringing you down and being called names that come from a place of love and people use them to accept you,” she said.

Aside from his light skin and hair, Perris can only see about five meters in front of him, and his vision is always blurry.

He earned the nickname White Tiger after getting his first taste of Aussie rules as a 17-year-old in Perth.

“At first I didn’t really like the nickname because I came from school and I thought it was a term that people used to belittle me, but I got to a point where I realised that I had been accepted into a group of people and given a nickname, like 99 per cent of the people at the football club. So I accepted the nickname and I still have it with me today,” he said.

“I had a change of mindset because I knew it wasn’t coming from a place of hate like it was in school. It was coming from a place of caring.

“I look back at pictures of myself from school and I definitely had very, very low self-confidence and my mental health probably wasn’t great, and that’s from standing out in a crowd and looking different to everyone else. Having albinism, you walk around and everyone knows who you are.

“I have a lot more confidence in myself now and I don’t care what other people think of me when I walk down the street.”