Marco Rubio Nails Kid in Face with Football, Teaches Child Important Life Lesson

Republican presidential candidate Marco Rubio was hot on the campaign trail in Iowa on Tuesday, converging on the state fair with other GOP presidential hopefuls for some good ol' shoe leather work among the constituents.

At some point, Rubio felt moved to throw some pigskin with the locals.

This was a good man-of-the-people move by Rubio, who parlayed the game of catch into a learning opportunity for a lucky child with more enthusiasm than hand-eye coordination.

Bloomberg (h/t CNN's Chris Moody) tweeted a video of the play. Seeing a child open over the middle, the junior state senator let fly and hit him square in the face.

DON EMMERT/Getty Images

And in much-needed GIF form, via Moody:

And in even-more-needed Pokemon GIF form, via the unmistakable Darth:

Tough stuff, kid. But that's life. 

Footballs, like life, come at you fast. You can have your hands up, eyes on the prize and every fiber of your being trained on the spiral, and that thing can still smoke you right in the mouth in front of everyone.

And no one will congratulate you for that, because catching a football with your bicuspids is not catching a football with your hands.

Jerry Rice didn't get into the Hall of Fame by trying to catch passes and resting on his football participation laurels. He pulled himself up by his bootstraps and caught that ball.

Rice didn't settle for quarterback handoffs, and neither should you, young man.

Dan is on Twitter.  If he came home with a participation trophy, his parents would invite over friends and burn it publicly on the lawn.