By David Scott
Boston Sports Media Watch

New York Times and investigative reporter Pete Thamel come after first-year coach Tommy Amaker’s Harvard basketball program with some fervency in this pre-released Sunday Times piece that will surely raise some Ivy League eyebrows.

Thamel, a Ware, Mass. native, who toils mostly in college athletics has become the Times‘ go-to guy for uncovering the underbelly of college athletics and was the driving force behind the 2005 takedown of diploma mills and the equally incredible 2006 look into the Auburn grades scandal.

One of the many strengths of Thamel in this type of reporting is that he almost always holds something back for the follow-up story. That said, we should probably expect some more mudslinging at the Crimson shield and some more “austere” statements from Amaker and his AD Bob Scalise.

. . . Now would be the time where a wise-acre would point out that Syracuse grad, Thamel, and his colleagues at the Big Daddy NYT have not only shown their enterprise reporting dominance, but they’ve launched this juicy one in the Globe’s backyard at one of Beantown’s sacred properties. Rodney Harrison would recognize that as taunting by the New Yorkers.

. . . John Powers, BTW, was a few days behind USA Today’s Marlen Garcia in attempting to create America’s Next Mary Lou.

That’s at least forgivable, but this line from “Olympic” Powers is not: “That’s easier for her to do back home in West Des Moines, Iowa, whose population can fit into Yankee Stadium.”

A whole lot of towns/cities could fit into Yankee Stadium. Places with anything from two to something like 60,000 citizens would qualify. The mostly reliable wikipedia definition puts the number at around 46,000. So what exactly was Powers saying? And why could I not get past that sentence for the longest time?