'WHERE'S THE GOAT?'

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February 22, 2022 

For information on enrollment and registration at Notre Dame, please visit the admissions section of our website here.

Notre Dame Prep freshman boys basketball team's wrong phone number leads to meeting the 2021 Super Bowl champs and learning valuable lessons in kindness, resilience and character.

When the Notre Dame Prep freshman boys basketball team showed up on Dec. 15 for another weekday grind through basketball practice, they expected another run-through of the kind of drills from head coach Andy Durkin that had by then resulted in a successful season. What they didn't expect was another chapter in a wild and crazy story that began with a simple wrong number on a group text.

Kim Murphy, the mother of Tampa Bay Buccaneer cornerback and 2021 Super Bowl champion Sean Murphy-Bunting, flew in to Michigan and was in the gym that evening to present autographed Murphy-Bunting jerseys to every freshman player and coach. She also talked to the boys about Successful Jocks, a nonprofit organization she founded that aims to motivate, inspire and empower student-athletes. 

Her surprise visit was the culmination of a remarkable journey that began after NDP freshman Luca Gasperoni’s number was added incorrectly to a late November team group chat that led to them surprisingly connected directly to Murphy-Bunting in the Buccaneer locker room. 

“Everyone was skeptical at first because it definitely couldn't be an NFL player, right?” NDP ninth grader Vinny Tartaglia, who was in charge of adding numbers to the text, told WDIV-TV of Detroit, one of many media outlets globally to cover the story after it went wildly viral. 

But it really was the NFL's Murphy-Bunting on the phone.

The group text then turned into a FaceTime call with several other Buccaneers, including running back Leonard Fournette, who walked the NDP student-athletes through the locker room and giving them a glimpse of players such as Mike Evans, Rob Gronkowski and Richard Sherman. An even bigger bonus awaited them on the call — but we'll get to that in a moment.

Meanwhile, this seemingly random "luck of the Irish" event for the team was starting to go viral literally around the world after NDP counselor and assistant freshman coach Jason Whalen posted a tweet after his son, Colin, also a member of the team, told him about the call. 

"A wild thing happened this AM that I had to share," Whalen's tweet began. "My son’s basketball team at @NDPMA_Athletics starts up a group chat. When entering phone numbers, they mess up one digit for one of their teammates. Then this random guy replies to the chat, 'did you mean to add me to this group?'"

That "random guy" was Murphy-Bunting and by the time the former Macomb County resident and Central Michigan University alum's mother visited the school a couple of weeks later, the wrong-number story had been seen or read in the New York Times, the Washington Post, ESPN, CNN, Fox News, NBC, ABC, CBS and countless others, including Good Morning America, The Independent in the United Kingdom, and at least two news organizations in Australia. 

A few of the ND Prep players were even featured nationally on a Fox Sports' NFL pregame show where they were interviewed by Cooper Manning, the brother of NFL greats Peyton and Eli Manning.

The GOAT appears

"I don't have much of a social media presence so I had no idea how far and how fast my tweet would travel," Whalen said. "I just knew it was a great story that needed to be shared because it puts a smile on your face. I also was hoping that it would serve as a thank you to Sean and his teammates for taking the call in the first place."

One can speculate about why such a story was shared around the world as much as it did. Granted, it was, as Whalen said, a great story. But the fact that the boys on the call refused to hang up until they could see one more player probably had more than a little to do with the story's popularity. 

"Where's the GOAT?" freshman Nate Seaman asked Fournette at the end of the call, referring, of course, to Tom Brady, the "greatest of all time."  

The kids went crazy when, sure enough, then-Tampa Bay quarterback and seven-time Super Bowl champion Brady got on the line. 

"What's up, fellas?" he greeted the kids.

Frosh Anthony Valentine, already a Michigan football fan (Brady played college football at U-M), said the first thing that came to mind. "I told him, 'Go blue, we're going to beat OSU!'"

Tartaglia said that finishing up the call with Brady made it even more of a once-in-a-lifetime experience. "It was truly a surreal experience to go through, especially for a freshman in high school."

Teammate Seaman agreed and added that the whole story in general was unbelievable. 

"This was something that I think will never ever happen again," he said. "They didn't have to take our call, but they did and it was great meeting all of the players. It was an incredible experience."

Kindness matters

For counselor Whalen, not surprisingly, he took the 30,000-ft. view of the whole affair.

"These young men have been incredible through it all," he said. "But it doesn't surprise me. I've known most of them and their families since sixth grade and had a chance to coach some of them in middle school."

He said he knows others on the team from coaching football and from his son's many friends. 

"I know we are blessed to have incredibly high-character young men in our school and in our athletic program," Whalen added. "I think coach Durkin and us as assistant coaches hope that these young men have learned how much of an impact one can have on someone else's life just by being kind and giving your time and energy to put a smile on someone's face."

He added that it was a perfect bookend to have Murphy-Bunting's mother come in and talk to the team about the inspirational story of her son and his climb to a Super Bowl championship.

"It's just one of many significant learning experiences that came from this," Whalen said. "Not the least of which has been that it has been an incredible team bonding experience, and the fact that Kim Murphy shared such a valuable message with our team about opportunities, character and resilience I know resonated deeply with these young men."

For information on enrollment and registration at Notre Dame, please visit the admissions section of our website here.

Comments or questions? mkelly@ndpma.org

Follow Notre Dame on Twitter at @NDPMA.

About Notre Dame Preparatory School and Marist Academy
Notre Dame Preparatory School and Marist Academy is a private, Catholic, independent, coeducational day school located in Oakland County. Notre Dame Preparatory School enrolls students in grades nine through twelve and has been named one of the nation's best 50 Catholic high schools (Acton Institute) four times since 2005. Notre Dame's middle and lower schools enroll students in pre-kindergarten through grade eight. All three schools are International Baccalaureate "World Schools." NDPMA is conducted by the Marist Fathers and Brothers and is accredited by the Independent Schools Association of the Central States and the National Association of Independent Schools. For more on Notre Dame Preparatory School and Marist Academy, visit the school’s home page at www.ndpma.org.