NBC is still scraping the egg off its face over an Olympic-size gaffe last week. It started with a report in a London newspaper that security concerns had the U.S. Olympic Committee considering a boycott of this summer’s Games in Athens, Greece (a prospect denied within the report). It grew into a prominently positioned segment March 15 on “Today,” the morning show on NBC, the U.S. home of the Olympics through 2012, in which Jim Scherr, USOC chief of sport performance and acting secretary general, denied during an interview with Campbell Brown that U.S. participation at Athens is iffy. NBC Sports and Olympics Chairman Dick Ebersol, who is aware of every rumble and ripple on the U.S. Olympics scene, could have done the same before the segment aired, had anyone from “Today” reached out to its authoritative and helpful in-house source while preparing for the segment. Such a logical check also would have eliminated the chagrined red faces at “Today” and the angry, redder faces at NBC Sports over the incident. A “Today” spokeswoman, who noted that the morning show refuted its own segment on-air last Tuesday, said “Today” will “check with sports” in similar situations in the future. As for the USOC, a spokesman said diplomatically, “I’m glad we had an opportunity to address it nationally before the story became any bigger.”