Jonathan Schroder was sitting next to his wife when he first saw the viral video of Covington Catholic students facing off with a Native American man in Washington, D.C. He told her right then and there that he would make a documentary based on the encounter.
"I was humiliated to associate myself with the school," Schroder, a Florence native and Covington Catholic alumnus, told The Enquirer.
He was frustrated, embarrassed, angry at the students. There is a sense of pride amongst CovCath graduates – it's a brotherhood, he said. An "intense brotherhood." He didn't like how that brotherhood was being perceived in the clip, which showed then-16-year-old Nicholas Sandmann sporting a Make America Great Again hat, standing face to face with Native American activist Nathan Phillips while Phillips played a drum and chanted. Sandmann's classmates surrounded them, their chants drowning out Phillips.
But then the narrative changed. The boys were instigated, apparently. And, after all, they were just kids. Schroder said people tend to forget that.
And the boys' chanting is a CovCath tradition, Schroder said. He remembers learning the school chants as a teenager, then showing up in mass numbers at football and basketball games and "intimidating the hell out of your opponents."
