BOXER FIGHTING AGAINST DRUGS

SPEECH: George Chuvalo's message has impact on students

WEST LINCOLN - If Sam Sadler learned anything Monday afternoon, it
was that perspective matters. It's easy, he said, to consider the
problems you are having as being so insurmountable that they will never end.

But things can be much worse and putting one's problems into their
proper context is important.

"When I think about what he had to endure, what he went through, it
makes me feel much less sorry for myself," said Sadler, a 16-year-old
master corporal at the Robert Land Academy. "It's pretty inspiring
that he was able to deal with all of that."

Sadler was talking about Canadian boxing legend George Chuvalo, who
was at the Wellandport military school to talk to the students about
what he calls his "personal family holocaust".

Chuvalo was once one of the best heavyweights in the world and traded
punches with the likes of George Foreman, Joe Frazier and, most
notably, Muhammad Ali.

"I fought a lot of guys who were ranked number four. I never had a
problem with them. Knocked them out. I always had a problem with the
guys ranked three, two and one," he told the students.

Boxing was a side note Monday to the story of Chuvalo's son Jesse, a
heroin addict whose 1985 suicide triggered a catastrophic series of
events for the family. Two of his other sons also became hooked on
heroin and both fatally overdosed in the 1990s.

Chuvalo told the Robert Land students that his sons were so hooked on
the drug, they would lose control over their bodies when they bought
heroin from a dealer.

"In one second, as if on cue, they would both defecate in their
pants," he said. "Just by seeing the drugs. That is how much power the
heroin had over them."

His first wife couldn't cope with the death of her children. Two days
after her second son's funeral, Lynne Chuvalo overdosed on pills her
sons had stolen from a drug store.

The boxer said he was only able to cope with the periods of depression
that followed through the love and support of his surviving son and
daughter and eventually the woman who became his second wife.

"Love is so important," he said. "Make sure you hug your parents every
day. Kiss your parents every day. Tell them you love them."

That, Chuvalo told the students, is the key to their future. His sons
died ultimately because they were "ignorant and unafraid" of the
consequences of taking drugs.

"It's hard to find a lot of honour students in prison. That should
tell you something," he said.

Even something as simple as not smoking has a long-term
benefit.

"I know you can't smoke here, and that is a good thing," he said. "We
know what smoking can do to you, so any young person who is smoking
today is disrespecting themselves. And once you disrespect yourself in
one area, it's easy to disrespect yourself in another."