Pubdate: Tue, 23 Nov 2010 Source: Tribune, The (CN ON) Copyright: 2010, Osprey Media Group Inc. Contact: http://www.wellandtribune.ca/feedback1/LetterToEditor.aspx Website: http://www.wellandtribune.ca/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/2807 Author: Grant LaFleche 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." - --- MAP posted-by: Matt