Heroes. We all have them. At least we’re SUPPOSED to all have them… So, you can imagine my disappointment when I realized that I didn’t have a hero. I had to find one.
It wasn’t so hard once I put my mind to it. It had to be a famous athlete of course, George Chuvalo, Canadian Heavyweight Boxing Champion five times and two-time title challenger. His bouts included Muhammed Ali, Joe Frazier, George Foreman, and other renowned fighters.
It wasn’t because he was the only famous athlete, I ran across … or into I should say. It was a long time ago when I was invited by a young lady to be her escort to a large wedding gala in Mississauga.
We were on the dance floor at the time. Not paying attention to my dance steps I had rehearsed beforehand, I stepped on the foot of this exceptionally large tough looking man in a tuxedo. He stopped instantly and glared at me. I froze, wishing to say how much I admired him but realized how stupid that would look after what just happened. He stared at me in contempt for a few more seconds. I noticed his hand slowly curling into a fist, causing my heart to skip a beat or two. I wanted to run but my legs seemed as paralyzed as the rest of me. He finally turned away and resumed dancing. I was off the hook. If it were his noted left hook that landed on me, I would have been a grease spot on the floor.
I haven’t met any other athletes despite trailing a few trying to get an autograph. I do have an ex-sister-in-law that was friends with Bernie “Boom-Boom’ Geoffrion. She was saying once about meeting him at a BBQ, “He picked me up and twirled me around like a hockey stick.
My kid brother had a relationship with a woman from Parry Sound. She had been the main squeeze of Bobby Orr during their high school years.
George Chuvalo was the Great White Canadian Hope who fought Muhammad Ali, twice. He was a boxer with a cast-iron chin who fought 93 times professionally and was never knocked out.
However, he was floored many times by family problems. His son Jesse Chuvalo got hooked on drugs and shot himself in the family home in west Toronto. His two brothers were also hooked addicted to heroin. His death affected his older brothers, Georgie and Steven profoundly, also pulled under by heroin. Two days after Georgie was found dead from an overdose, his mother swallowed a bottle of prescription pills. Steven Chuvalo survived prison, but he died on the streets in 1996.
The headlines screamed, “It is impossible to describe what could be worse than George Chuvalo’s loss.” Now an old boxer, he was heard to say, “I am always in mourning. I am not made of stone, so I cry because it feels better, and I do OK for not being OK.”
After retirement he talked to school groups about his life. Not the fights, not Ali, but the drugs. The wreckage. I also show the students old photos of my kids, smiling and laughing when they were young. They gasp when they hear what happened to my sons and wife.
He’s still damaged goods but is finally able to enjoy life again. Before they died, his sons gave him six grandchildren, and he turns to mush when he sees them. He’s closest with Steven’s son, also named Jesse, who’s 26 and works for a moving company. They go to the gym together several times a week and when they do, George feels like he has his sons back. He never hangs up the phone without telling me he loves me.
These days, this granite boulder of a man in the ring who faced crushing tragedy outside of it – is beginning to slip away. After a pro career of 93 fights and innumerable blows to the head, the legendary boxer has ‘significant cognitive impairment.’
If only I could have met George on friendlier terms, I would have said to him, “I just wanted to shake your hand and to say that you are my hero, not only as a champion boxer but overcoming so many family tragedies and then sharing your story of the pitfalls of drugs with students.
