Endurance is a term most-often used in sportswriting when referring to an athlete's sense of resolve, but never is it more appropriate than when applied to the life of one George Chuvalo . His is a story that goes beyond redemption and finds paramount importance in what remained in his life.

For 20 years he reigned as Canada's heavyweight champion, both amateur and professional. As gatekeeper to the heavyweight division of the 1960s golden era, he earned the reputation as the toughest man in the world. In a career of 93 bouts, he never once met the canvas. Surviving the blows from names like Ali, Frazier and Foreman, he proved himself to be the toughest of boxers against the greatest of all-time fighters.

He could arguably take a punch better than anyone in boxing history.

Cus D'mato once said, "A fighter cannot be knocked down if he sees a punch coming.'' However the blows George Chuvalo absorbed later in his life are not the type you can see coming, nor the type anyone should be asked to endure.

Most ex-champions hope for a life of ease after boxing, but the natural order of things was tragically reversed for Chuvalo. No amount of training could prepare him for the horrors of what would follow his career.

George and his first wife, Lynn, had five children. Nine months of heroin addiction would drive Chuvalo's youngest son, Jesse, to the point of no return.

On February, 18, 1985, he took his life at the age of 20.

George:  "My son. Jesse, in the despair of addiction, took a .22-caliber rifle, lodged it against the roof of his mouth, pulled the trigger, and sealed not only his fate, but the fate of two of his brothers, and his mother."

On Oct 31, 1993,  son Georgie Lee was found dead in a nearby hotel room from a heroin overdose.

George: "They found him much the same way they would find his older brother three years later: his body slumped in a chair, wearing a pair of shorts, with a syringe sticking out of his left arm."

It's been written, ''Every wound has its own revelation.'' But this particular wound would manifest into the suicide of his Chuvalo's wife, Lynn, four days after Georgie Lee's funeral. Sorrow drove her to an overdose of prescription pills.

George: "I walked around the bed. I saw her face was blackish-blue and badly swollen. She was clutching the remains of our son, Jesse, and a suicide note saying -- it hurts me to say it -- 'I looked for love and couldn't find any.' "

Unable to live with a reasonable balance between resolve and despair, Chuvalo sought solace in the catharsis of public speaking. Desperately trying to climb from an agonizing abyss of sorrow, he emerged with a mission: to share his tragic story and anti-drug message with the youth of Canada.

Even then, Chuvalo's son Steven, struggling with his own addiction, found himself incarcerated on his 35th birthday for drug-related theft. In a 1995 interview, he spoke of his determination to conquer his addiction.

Steven:  "My father has never given up hope on me. When he says to me, 'I need you to be well ... I need you to be okay so I'll be okay,' and he says this with such conviction, it hits home. And I think to myself, 'Man I've got to be well for him and the rest of my family.' "

But incredibly, Steven's fate would provide his father with a wholly intimate escort to the depths of hell.

On August 5, 1995, 12 days after he was released from prison, Steven Chuvalo was found dead of a heroin overdose -- the third Chuvalo son to suffer a drug-related death.

George:  "Steven was going to come around with me to speak to young people. My son and I thought it was a great idea., but he never got that chance. He died 30 days before we were to make our first presentation. The horrible thing was I couldn't stop it. I couldn't stop their pain. I couldn't stop their addiction. Once you're an addict, you're always an addict."

Fighters, by profession, are practiced at the art of pain management, and Chuvalo proved to be the master. His vortex of agony would not prevail.

The absence of loved ones left a void in his soul, but not in his purpose. Chuvalo understood that a part of himself would die, too, if the memories of his loved ones were not validated. He used that understanding to emerge from what could have become an endless depression.

By bringing his tragic story and anti-drug message to the youth of Canada, Chuvalo hopes to dissuade his country's next generation from the evils that devoured his own family. But the fighter, too, is a beneficiary: He's discovered that sharing memories of his loved ones helps him make sense of his past, and offers some measure of redemption and hope.

Chuvalo had losses in the ring, and certainly in life, but what he accomplished in his later rounds exemplifies what the term winning is really all about.

Life sometimes smiles upon us, and the last laugh is reserved for leniency.

By age 72, most people have descended from the elegance of their best years, but not George. From the dark clouds of a long, hard life, beauty reached out to him in the end.

Perhaps the mark of a great man is that he doesn't allow the howling mouth of affliction to defeat him. In life, as in the ring, there was never a blow powerful enough to knock down George Chuvalo.

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