Tom Brady, Rob Gronkowski Join High School Team's Call After Student Mistakenly Adds Player's Number
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Taylor Hill/WireImage; Jonathan Leibson/Getty Images
Tom Brady, Rob Gronkowski, and their teammate Sean Murphy-Bunting helped turn a silly mistake into a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for some young students.
The Tampa Bay Buccaneers teammates helped surprise the Notre Dame Prep freshman basketball team in Pontiac, Michigan, with a special FaceTime call after one of the young players, Vinny Tartaglia, sent a text to the wrong number while attempting to create a group chat for the freshmen, per Notre Dame Prep school counselor P. Jason Whalen.
Instead of texting a teammate, Tartaglia accidentally reached Buccaneers cornerback Murphy-Bunting the day before Thanksgiving.
"Ya'll meant to add me to this?" asked the Michigan native, per the outlet. But the boys didn't believe Murphy-Bunting, 24, was who he said he was — even after the cornerback sent them a selfie, which Whalen shared on Twitter.
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So, Murphy-Bunting decided to FaceTime the group chat — and both Brady, 44, and Gronkowski, 32, eventually joined in.
The boys are like “yes, if this is XXXX.” The guy replies, “no, this is Sean. Do you know who I am?” Of course they think it’s their teammate messing with them. After some back and forth the guy says “this is @seanbunting_ ” and he sends a selfie in the Bucs locker room… pic.twitter.com/qdrbTzE0Fo
— P. Jason Whalen (@pjwhalen16) November 24, 2021
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After speaking with Murphy-Bunting, the boys were introduced to running back Leonard Fournette, who then gave them a brief tour of the Buccaneers' locker room, according to Whalen.
That's when the team met Gronkowski, wide receiver Mike Evans and cornerback Richard Sherman. In one screenshot from the call, Gronkowski is enthusiastically chatting with the boys.
Apparently at that point SMB hands his phone to @_fournette who proceeds to walk around the locker room and introduce the boys to @MikeEvans13_ , @RobGronkowski, @RSherman_25, etc… pic.twitter.com/nd9aR2RgrT
— P. Jason Whalen (@pjwhalen16) November 24, 2021
Fournette stayed on the line for an additional 10 minutes so the team could meet the one-and-only Tom Brady, who had been finishing up a meeting, Whalen said.
Eventually, the star quarterback popped up on the screen and said "What's up fellas?!?!" — and the boys promptly lost their minds.
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Fournette stays on FaceTime for a good 10 minutes while @TomBrady finishes up a meeting. The boys are absolutely losing it during this. After some time passes he pops up on the screen and says “What’s up fellas?!?!” The boys lose their minds… pic.twitter.com/JBwTtsKrRg
— P. Jason Whalen (@pjwhalen16) November 24, 2021
After their brief meeting, Whalen said Bunting ended the call by telling the team to "ball out this season!"
"What an awesome experience for our boys and what an amazing group of guys on the Buccaneers," Whalen wrote on Twitter.
Brady, also a Michigan native, later told ESPN that he thought the surprise call was "sweet" and "fun."
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"I didn't know who it was," Brady confessed. "[Leonard] said, 'Here's my boy' or whatever he said. It was nice. It would have been nice for me when I had been in high school too."
"They were shocked," Fournette added. "I think that's ... to guys in high school, Tom is the figure for them. You know what I mean? Who wouldn't want to look up to a guy like that?"