Bruins for Life on Life Support After Tax-Fraud Allegations Surface

UCLA's football NIL operation is under scrutiny for funneling money through a friendly charity.

---

The last time I was writing about UCLA’s NIL operation, I threw in a small aside that I was disappointed with the announced restructuring of the entire operation, noting that I did not like the idea of siloing Men of Westwood off to be a basketball-only operation and putting James Washington in charge of a new football NIL operation known as Bruins for Life.

Anyway, time to add another tally to the “Dimitri is right about everything” list.

A little over a year after that announced restructuring, Bruins for Life appears to be no more. Their website is currently down, and all mentions of the football NIL collective have been scrubbed from the Wooden Athletic Fund website and Champion of Westwood, the overall NIL collective managing all the different branches of NIL for UCLA.

This is in the wake of a new report from David Covucci of FOIABall.com alleging that James Washington and Bruins for Life engaged in tax fraud by steering donors to send their money not to the collective itself but to Shelter 37, a tax-exempt charity run by Washington and his associates. Worse still, this flaunting of the rules was aided and abetted by the UCLA administration, which steered donors to give to Shelter 37 rather than Bruins for Life whenever possible.

The entire report is damning, and I encourage you to read through it (the article is free to read as long as you sign up for the free newsletter). Covucci brought the receipts, showing off several emails between the UCLA athletic department and donors, where they are clearly telling the donors where to send their money and to have the money earmarked for either UCLA Football or Bruins for Life. There was also ample communication between the school and Washington, which presented the charity as a way for UCLA donors to get a tax deduction on their NIL donations. The AD official who seems to have been running point on this was Brian Smith, who retired in June of 2025, according to the WAF staff page. When he retired, Smith was working as UCLA’s Chief Development Officer and was the head of fundraising.

When asked for comment, James Washington first tried to deflect and state that Bruins for Life wasn’t an NIL collective at all and was instead an “alumni club”, and when pressed on that replied that the initial idea was for it to be a collective, but it “never came to life.” Washington was similarly evasive when discussing the actual charity work Shelter 37 did with UCLA football and stated that he never discussed donations with the school. No word on whether Washington later disputed the color of the sky.

Per FOIABall:

UCLA’s athletics communications director Liza David said, “UCLA Athletics operates with integrity and transparency, in a manner that is consistent with industry best practices. Our development team educates potential donors on a range of giving opportunities, including avenues to support our student-athletes.”

According to FOIABall, the Bruins for Life website went down following Covucci’s first attempts at getting a statement. I would assume the other references to Bruins for Life were taken down at the same time.

There are a lot of different ways to slice this story, but let’s start with a basic premise. What James Washington and UCLA were attempting to do is very much illegal and a clear example of tax fraud. NIL collectives are currently blocked from applying for 501c3 tax-exempt status, as the IRS believes that collectives do not count as charities, given that they do not distribute their funds for a public good. Many newer collectives do not even attempt to apply for 501c3 status anymore, while others, like Bruins for Life, have attempted various workarounds to activate donations from boosters who would like to lower their taxes while supporting their preferred football team. So on some level, I can’t blame UCLA for doing this, and I am honestly surprised that the athletic department was even trying to get donations for NIL in the first place.

But on the flip side, this is another black mark for Martin Jarmond’s tenure as athletic director. Bruins for Life came into existence in large part because Jarmond was uncomfortable with UCLA’s NIL structure as it had previously existed, with Men of Westwood raising funds independent of the athletic department (and with the aid of Mick Cronin, which explains why UCLA was able to put together a Top 20 NIL operation in basketball despite *waves hands in general direction of Morgan Center*). Men of Westwood had a football arm, but it had been kept at arm's length from the program thanks to Chip Kelly and Deshaun Foster. Jarmond, to his credit, understood that UCLA needed a true NIL operation in football to be competitive, but his solution was a poor one, turning to Washington to spearhead these new efforts. Now, UCLA is embroiled in a brand new scandal as a result.

For Washington, this is not a good look any way you slice it, and has some “fun” parallels to the recent story regarding the Clippers and Kawhi Leonard, as Steve Ballmer allegedly used a tech startup to funnel money to his star forward and circumvent NBA salary rules. Given that Washington is the founder and president of Shelter 37, there are obviously questions now about whether he skimmed money as part of this scheme, which is not a great look, especially compared to Men of Westwood, which responded to concerns from the UCLA community (including from me) by showing more transparency. Despite all of his denials, his fingerprints and digital tracks are all over this report, and if the IRS wanted to pursue charges, they would have an easy case to make.

The saddest part of this whole story is how little impact it truly had on UCLA football. UCLA’s NIL efforts in football have long been one of the worst in the Power Four conferences, thanks to an athletic department that has been actively hostile to the endeavor despite watching the sport change around them. Even now, those poor NIL efforts have made it hard to convince some coaches to come to UCLA, highlighting just how out of touch the administration is when it comes to the modern college football landscape. UCLA aiding its donors in potentially committing tax fraud for so little payoff is a perfectly UCLA result of this story.

Go Bruins.