Update 12/10/2020 10:48pm:

The youth football coach catching the ire of the nation after video captured him striking one of his 9-year-old players during a timeout. Gerrel Williams has been identified as the coach and issued an apology after the now-viral video made its rounds. “At the end of the day, I am a man, and I’m not gon’ make no excuses for what I did,” said Williams. “I was wrong. I shouldn’t have disciplined him in public — I shoulda waited ‘til he got back — for doing what he did." [

He continued, "At the end of the day, I apologize to him, the kids, the city … and my family back at home. I do apologize. There’s no excuse for my actions. I hope he forgive me, and his parents have forgiven me.”

According to TMZ, the Osceola County Sheriff's Office in Florida investigated Williams's act as possible child abuse and reached out to the child's mother who did not want to press charges. 

Original 12/10/2020 3:05am:

A peewee football coach is seen striking one of his players in the head in a now-viral video, causing widespread outrage. Many commented on the video stating that football coaches get physical with players when reprimanding them, but the one being chastised was a 9-year-old boy. 

The incident happened at a game in Kissimmee, Florida, at the American Youth Football National Championships. The coach for the Savannah Gators is captured, hitting the player in the head at the start of what appeared to be a timeout. In a since-deleted Facebook post, the Savannah Gators organization wrote, "Please keep the negative comments off this page please this organization has great coaches we understand what we all saw yesterday was disturbing to us all but let’s not blame everyone for one mans actions." 

"The organization is not at Nationals we have only 2 age groups a National 7U & 9U with only those coaches of those age groups witch [sic] the guy in the video is our 9U head coach he is a good guy that just took it a little to [sic] far on a 9U player we understand and we are aware of what’s going on and will like to apologize to the #BigPeachConference…." the statement continued. 

Source: twitter.com