GEORGE CHUVALO'S IN THEIR CORNER

Helping troubled teens keeps him going after losing three sons and a
wife to heroin's deadly ravages

George Chuvalo leans against a wall in the hallway of a Brampton group
home, trying to ignore a videotape of his life being shown to seven
young offenders in the next room.

But when the soft voice of Steven Chuvalo, the last of his three sons
to succumb to heroin addiction, filters out into the hall, his huge
heavyweight body shudders ever so slightly.

"Stevie," he says, almost in a whisper. "This is the hardest part,
seeing Stevie alive, so gentle and sweet. You listen to him talk and
you really believe there is hope he can turn it around. I thought he
had a shot."

He pauses for a few seconds, and the pain seems to spill out of his
eyes with the welling tears. "Whenever I see him in this, I lose it. I
think of the way his skin smelled, the shape of his face, his inner
sweetness. I have to rely on this video and my memory to keep him alive."

It has been almost three years since the last tragic chapter of George
Chuvalo's personal holocaust. Three sons and their mother all gone,
victims of heroin's deadly impact. This is what brings him here, what
keeps him going, the belief that repeating this unbelievable, awful
story will save other families from the same pain and suffering that
almost massacred his.

"I can't watch the whole video, even though I've shown it hundreds of
times. But I always watch a little bit just to put me in that
emotional funk so I can do this," he says.

"It gives my life purpose, but it's still so hard. So
hard."

It is ironic. Mr. Chuvalo looks better, more fit, more vibrant than he
has in years. He has dropped 40 pounds, his still-dark hair is cut
short and he looks like he could still punch his way through a few
rounds, much as he did in 97 battles as a top heavyweight contender.

At 61, he looks almost young again.

Yet the pain that envelops this man's entire being is a million years
old.

Whenever Mr. Chuvalo gives one of his talks, he generally uses Steven
as the jump-off point. That is because Steven was still alive when the
video ends, and there is such hope in his voice when he talks about
finally beating heroin. Mr. Chuvalo knows that when he tells audiences
Steven died of an overdose 10 days later, he will have them exactly
where he wants them.

Listening.

Then he reels off the dates -- dates seared into his mind
forever.

Feb. 18, 1985: Jesse Chuvalo, suffering relentless pain from a
motorcycle injury and nine months of heroin addiction, fires a
.22-calibre rifle into his head and takes his own life in a bedroom in
the family's Etobicoke home. He was 20.

"My son Jesse not only sealed his own fate, but the fate of his two
brothers and his mother," Mr. Chuvalo tells them in a low, steady
voice, fighting against the images that invade his brain and choke his
throat.

Oct. 31, 1993: Halloween night. In a seedy Parkdale hotel room,
Georgie Lee Chuvalo, fresh from his third incarceration for petty
crimes that enabled him to feed his habit, takes his final fix and
dies from it, sitting in a chair, the heroin needle at his side. He
was 30.

"Georgie was a tough kid, different from Stevie, who was so gentle.
But it was too much for him. He couldn't handle it when he came out.
He was so lost."

Nov. 4, 1993: Just four days later, Lynne Chuvalo, impossibly tortured
by the loss of two sons, consumes a large amount of pills, embraces a
Bible to her heart and lays quietly until she dies. She was 51.

Mr. Chuvalo, recalling the pain and guilt that made it impossible for
them even to look at each other, remembers peeking in on his wife as
he left the house for the day. "Her back was turned to me and I
thought she was sleeping. 'See ya later, doll,' I said. I came back
several hours later and found her in the same position. I knew."

He follows this by describing Steven's pain when he told him his
mother was dead. His screams were unlike anything he had ever heard.

Aug. 17, 1996: At the same moment his father was working the corner of
bantamweight champ Johnny Tapia, Steven Chuvalo's life flickered out
as he sat in his sister's apartment, the full flush of his last fix
coursing through his veins. He was 35.

"Stevie was a drug addict who was destined to die," Mr. Chuvalo tells
the boys.

In his two-hour, free-wheeling talk, he points to various tiny scars
on his broad, Croatian face and details his encounters with Muhammad
Ali, George Foreman, Joe Frazier and Floyd Patterson. Fighting is
macho, and these boys dig macho.

Then he slides into his true message. He talks about where their lives
are and where they are headed, about choices and self-worth, about
keeping their bodies -- and their minds -- fit, about staying in
school, about keeping away from drugs.

He always kicks it up a notch when speaking to kids such as these who
are already travelling a rocky road. They remind him so much of
Georgie and Steven and their troubled times. He could not save his
sons, but maybe their fate can turn around some of these boys.

"So many of them suffer from low self-esteem," he later
explains.

"They feel like crap, and when a kid feels like crap it pulls him
off-track. The idea is try to get them to stop and think about what
they're doing. I always talk about bolstering odds in their favour so
they can feel good about themselves."

His words are very graphic, especially when he talks about the drugs'
effects on his sons, painting horrific pictures that will surely stay
with these boys long after he departs. But he does it quietly,
poignantly, his efforts sprinkled with tears and smiles made of sweet
memories.

"Tell your mothers and fathers and siblings that you love them," he
concludes. "Show that love and they will love you back. But more
important, love yourselves."

He looks directly at each one of them with a final, soft-spoken
message.

In a nearby Portuguese restaurant, attacking an enormous seafood
lunch, Mr. Chuvalo looks more relaxed than he has in some time.

"I am more relaxed," he says. "I still have a life to live. I have a
family. But it never gets easier. I just have to do these talks. When
I go too long without doing one, I get edgy. I feel lousy. You don't
ever heal, but these kids give me a renewed vigour. They give some
meaning to what happened."

His life is somewhat more settled. His new wife, Joanne, and her
children, Jesse, 16, and Ruby, 12, keep him grounded in a warm family
atmosphere. He is also close to his two remaining offspring, Mitchell,
38, and Vanessa, 31, and Steven's two children, Rachel, 16, and Jesse,
12.

Outside of that, his remaining passion is channelled into his Fight
Against Drugs campaign.

"Some guys my age are heading toward retirement, but I feel like I'm
just starting out. For so many years, I was a fighter, but now this
defines who I am and what I do."

No one ever knocked George Chuvalo down in a boxing ring. It's a feat
only life was able to accomplish. Four times.

And yet here he is -- wounded in such a way most mortals could never
comprehend -- but still standing.