Watch Little Kid Hit By Marco Rubio's Football Toss Challenge at GOP Hopeful
Rubio threw a pass to a little kid during the Iowa State Fair.
— -- Oh snap.
GOP presidential hopeful Marco Rubio is being tossed a new challenge -- not by Donald Trump, Scott Walker, or Jeb Bush -- but by 4-year old Brody Dill, the “Iowa kid” who he accidentally beaned in the head with a football. It was all caught on camera, and the video quickly went viral.
“Hey Rubio! When you get back to Iowa, I’ll be ready for you, Rubio,” Dill responded on Wednesday in a video posted to Twitter by his uncle, Iowa state Sen. Jack Whitver, who is also Rubio’s Iowa campaign chair.
The now infamous pass happened at a family-friendly event on Tuesday, with Rubio tossing the pigskin to a line of kids while he was out campaigning at the Iowa State Fair.
“When it happened, it wasn’t really a big deal as it happens all the time to kids,” Whitver wrote in an email. Brody, a big football fan, got right “back up and got in line to keep playing.”
But the Twittersphere was all a-buzz, with all sorts of GIFs and memes being created.
The Rubio campaign has embraced the event. Within minutes of the video going viral, it had launched “Team Marco” and “Marco ‘16” jerseys.
Rubio himself tweeted, “The QB always gets the blame.”
On Wednesday, the campaign included the video in a press release listing highlights from Rubio’s trip to Iowa. “Marco also practiced football with his sons and other kids from the neighborhood—and the highlight reel made ESPN,” boasted the press release.
Long before he decided to get into politics, Rubio wanted to become a pro-football player. He spent his first year of college on a football scholarship, and his wife, Jeanette, is a former Dolphins cheerleader. Rubio also coaches his son's football team and often uses football references out on the trail.
Many of those who re-tweeted the video maintained it wasn’t Rubio’s pass that was at fault.
Whitver says the event just showed a more human side of the candidate.
“Every dad can relate to it,” he said, “and every kid has had a ball bounce off their head at some point.”