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          How Tom Brady, Rob Gronkowski and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers landed on a call with a Michigan high school basketball team

          • Jenna Laine, ESPN Staff WriterDec 2, 2021, 03:12 PM ET
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              Jenna Laine covers the Tampa Bay Buccaneers for ESPN. She started covering the Bucs for ESPN in 2016, but she has covered the team since 2009. Follow Jenna on Twitter: @JennaLaineESPN.
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          Have you ever wondered who might be on the receiving end of a wrong number included in a group text?

          For one Pontiac, Michigan, high school basketball team, it just so happened that the person they inadvertently messaged this week was Tampa Bay Buccaneers cornerback Sean Murphy-Bunting, and their mix-up would lead to a FaceTime call with some of the biggest stars in the Bucs' locker room.

          The call started because they didn't believe who Murphy-Bunting was. He then got tight end Rob Gronkowski to join in, before handing the phone off to cornerback Richard Sherman and running back Leonard Fournette. Then things got really wild -- when quarterback (and notable Michigan alumnus) Tom Brady hopped on the call, much to the delight of the group.

          "They were shocked," Fournette said of when he handed the phone to Brady. "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?"

          "That was sweet," Brady said of the impromptu FaceTime. "I didn't know who it was. [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."

          When Brady found out the kids were from Michigan?

          "Even better," he said. "That was fun. That was really fun. It was really good to see all those young kids hyped up."

          Here's how it all went down, according to P. Jason Whalen, whose son Colin is on the freshman basketball team at Notre Dame Preparatory School and Marist Academy, which is about 35 minutes from where Murphy-Bunting grew up in Macomb, Michigan.