Celtics coach Joe Mazzulla joins Tim Tebow in distancing himself from Life Surge after 'scam' allegations

Boston Celtics coach Joe Mazzulla was one of the many sports figures connected to Christian organization Life Surge when allegations emerged of predatory financial practices.

Mazzulla previously spoke at a Life Surge event in Portland, Maine last September and was scheduled to do another in Hartford, Connecticut on Oct. 17. He has reportedly informed the organization he will no longer attend the Hartford event and requested his image be removed from its website.

"Once these [allegations] came out, I just completely backed out of it. I'm not showing up there and obviously don't support any of the allegations or things that they're accused of, and [I'm] moving forward."

The allegations against Life Surge came via a co-investigation by the podcast "Pablo Torre Finds Out" and Kiera Butler of Mother Jones . Mazzulla was one of dozens of celebrities paid to draw attendees to a relatively cheap introductory event, at which point the people would be pushed into a cascading series of financial education classes, such as how to make money from the stock market or real estate.

These classes were not cheap. After an initial $97 class, packages would reportedly range from about $10,000 to $40,000, all presented as ways for attendees to enrich themselves and to help advance their Christian mission. Attendees who were not able to put money up front were allegedly encouraged to take out lines of credit with a third-party lender or draw from retirement accounts.

While those lines of credit reportedly started with low interest rates, if not zero, the variable interest rate would soon escalate to an unmanageable degree, allegedly leaving those involved in dire financial straits.

Mazzulla told the Globe he hopes those attendees will have the resources and guidance needed to regroup, but also won't let the matter impact his mission to do good via his religion:

"It's an unfortunate situation, but my purpose is to use my platform for a positive impact on faith," Mazzulla said. "The risk you take is situations like this happen. The most important thing is to No. 1, focus on the people who were wronged and No. 2, do the best job you can authentically and morally and ethically to share your faith without negatively impacting people."

The PTFO episode, titled "We Investigated the Christian 'Scam' Fronted by Tim Tebow," mostly focuses on Tebow, who was reportedly paid between $50,000 and $100,000 per appearance and was on pace to appear at 23 different events across 2026. It's unclear how much Mazzulla was compensated for his appearance.

Tebow said Friday he is pausing his relationship with Life Surge as his team looks into the allegations, which he called "extremely, extremely serious."

In addition to Tebow and Mazzulla, a litany of former athletes and coaches have been connected to Life Surge through the investigations or the organization's own website: Joe Montana, Magic Johnson, Derek Carr, Marcus Mariota, Saquon Barkley, Cooper DeJean, Brandon Graham, Michael Strahan, Nick Foles, Nick Sirianni, David Ortiz, Russell Wilson, Dominique Dawes, Jerome Bettis, Darryl Strawberry, Emmitt Smith, Cris Carter, Mark Few, Jeremiah Smith, Calvin Johnson, Brian Dawkins, Bob Stoops, Brian Urlacher, Antonio Gates and David Robinson.

Former ESPN host Sage Steele is also alleged to have participated in 10 events in 2026 alone.

Mazzulla has been the Celtics' head coach since the 2022-23 season, reaching the playoffs in all four seasons so far and winning the NBA championship in 2023-24.