This poor sideline photographer took a football right to the nuts

Pour one out for his beans.

The life of a sideline photographer is one of intense pressure and peerless focus. Every play could be your chance to get the big shot that defined a game, or it could be doubling over in agony because a football hit your square in the beans.

Ethan Bacon, the photographer in question, got more than he ever bargained for with the camera to his eye watching Rutgers QB Gavin Wimsatt roll out of the pocket. Lens trained on the ball, he managed to film every single second of the ball’s beauty in flight, before it bounced right into his family jewels.

I don’t know the award structure for sports photographers, but surely there has to be a category for playing through the pain — or at the very least a commitment to excellence at the expense of personal safety. Bacon put his job in that moment over everything else, and that is worthy of the most amount of praise.

If Hans Moleman deserves praise at a film festival, then so does Ethan Bacon on the sideline.

Football truly is a beautiful sport.