Pete Thamel

Pete Thamel is a college football senior writer for ESPN. One of the industry’s most widely respected reporters, Thamel covers college football year-round for ESPN, as well as some college basketball.

A top news-breaker and storyteller, Thamel joined ESPN in January 2022. His multi-platform role includes writing for ESPN and ESPN+, and appearing on studio programs – College GameDay, SportsCenter, College Football Live, Get Up, and more. His day-to-day news reporting appears on ESPN.com, while a majority of his features and non-news reporting is part of ESPN+.

An award-winning reporter, Thamel joined ESPN from Yahoo Sports where he covered college sports and the NFL since 2017. Thamel also worked for five years as a senior writer at Sports Illustrated, covering college football and basketball, and he previously spent nine years as the national college sports reporter for the New York Times.

A member of the Football Writers Association of America, Thamel has earned numerous FWAA writing awards the past decade and a half. He’s won numerous APSE awards, including first place for beat reporting in 2017 and breaking news in 2011. In 2006, the New York Times nominated him for a Pulitzer Prize for national reporting.

Thamel attended Syracuse University and graduated from the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications.