CHUVALO FIGHTS TO SAVE OTHERS' KIDS

George Chuvalo has told the story hundreds of times, and it always makes
him sick to his stomach.

"My sons were so desperate for heroin that, when they would see it, they
would crap in their drawers," Chuvalo, Canada's former heavyweight champ,
told about 300 students at Whitby's Anderson Collegiate yesterday. "And
then my beautiful sons would shoot heroin into their veins with excrement
running down their legs."

Having lost three sons to heroin use -- Jesse, in 1985 to suicide, and
George Lee, in 1993, and Steven, in 1996, to overdoses -- Chuvalo didn't
pull any punches in a talk put on by the Ontario Crime Control Commission.

'SERIES OF STEPS'

"Nobody starts off with crack or coke or heroin. It's a series of steps,"
said Chuvalo, who once took on boxing legends like Muhammad Ali and George
Foreman in the ring. "If my sons could have seen into the future and how
they would end up, they would never have taken drugs."

The OCCC estimates there are 330,000 drug abusers in Ontario. Last year,
307 people died from drug overdoses.

"It starts with disrespecting yourself. If you choose to smoke, knowing
what it will do to you, you disrespect yourself," said Chuvalo, Canada's
champ from 1958-1979. "I'm not suggesting smoking leads to drug use, but
most of the drug users I've seen are smokers, too."

He said George Lee and Steven were so desperate for drugs they once robbed
a pharmacy.

Student Tushana Morris, 17, said she was stunned by Chuvalo's frank
presentation.

"I really admire him," Morris said. "It amazes me how he fought to save his
kids. A lot of other people would just give up."