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Sunday, May 04, 2003

By Chuck Finder, Post-Gazette Sports Writer

Luke Chiovitti goes door to door, business to business, stumping for the Pennsylvania Golden Gloves championships. He dresses for such calls like any good marketing person would. Usually, when he informs the unaware owners or operators inside that he is among the finalists Saturday, they no longer trust his sales pitch.

Maybe it's the fact he is a skinny, abbreviated, baby-faced, 21-year-old.

Maybe it's the clothes.

"A lot of them, yeah, they don't believe it," said Chiovitti, Western Pennsylvania's newly crowned 125-pound champion. "Unless I have a black eye to show them.

"They aren't used to seeing boxers in suits, you know?"

Chiovitti a fortnight ago added to his attire a trophy from the regional Golden Gloves finals at the same David L. Lawrence Convention Center where he will fight next. When the highest level of the Pennsylvania Golden Gloves championships come to Pittsburgh next weekend for the first time in roughly 30 years, the skinny, abbreviated young man from Kennedy is scheduled to meet the defending state champion, Carney Bowman of Lincolnway-York. Bowman, one of the many Philadelphia-area fighters with a gaudy ring resume, also won the Pennsylvania 112-pound title in 1999.

Say this for Chiovitti (pronounced sha-VET-ee): He is well traveled. Road tested, even.

He and trainer Jimmy Cvetic, for whom he does Golden Gloves marketing, wound up a champion earlier this spring at the Eastern Regionals in West Virginia along with Rob Strauss of Upper St. Clair and trainer Craig Wolfley, a former Steelers lineman with a Bridgeville gym. The group soon after piled into a car and drove to the U.S. Everlast Championships in Colorado Springs, Colo. Whereupon Chiovitti lost to the nation's third-ranked boxer in the featherweight division, Dat Nguyen.

After weathering such competition outside the Commonwealth, he isn't overwhelmed about facing a defending state Golden Gloves champ, even if the guy -- Bowman -- won it last year with a first-round knockout.

While International Boxing Federation lightweight champion Paul Spadafora was surrounded by cameras and media types Wednesday at Cvetic's 3rd Avenue Gym, Downtown, Chiovitti brought along his entourage and quietly prepared for his daily workout. His group began and ended with his wife, Tina, and his 11-month-old son, Santino, who studied one of the bags intently. The ring game is in his genes.

An uncle, Luke, for whom Chiovitti is named, once boxed at world-class level, so goes the family lore. And his father, Dino, himself was a Golden Gloves winner long ago in a similar weight class.

The son took up boxing about two years ago for the usual ring reasons. "To stay out of trouble," he said. "I was always in trouble."

After four months of boxing, he got into a situation on the road, and it sidetracked his boxing career.

While on a 6-mile run that is part of his training routine, Chiovitti took a misstep and his left knee was injured.

"I stepped on a rotten apple," he said. "This old lady had an apple tree. Not exactly a hero's story. But that's how it happened."

Worse still, when he limped to the lady's door to ask her to summon an ambulance, then explained what happened, "she yelled at me for running by her house."

His leg was in traction for four months. He disdained surgery. He took a year off and rehabilitated it.

"I never met anyone who had surgery on their knee and it turned out better," he said.

He returned to the gym at a bloated 160 pounds, far from featherweight status, and worked his way back into fighting trim.

After an Eastern Regionals championship in March and a regional Golden Gloves title in April, he is training and trying to promote the upcoming state finals Downtown.

Said Chiovitti the marketing guy: "I think it's going to be a good show, particularly after the last [state championships here] was years ago. And this is the best Pittsburgh team we've had in a long, long time."

Said Chiovitti the boxer: "I have some competition. All Philadelphia fighters are good."

Said Chiovitti the combination of both: "I'm trying to get support at the fight, because we're going to need it."

NOTES -- The public is invited to a "Parade of Champions," to meet Golden Gloves finalists at 6 p.m. Thursday inside the Sports Rock Cafe in the Strip District. Tickets are available at the 3rd Avenue Cafe, Downtown. ... The finals, matching the Philadelphia-Central area winners against the Pittsburgh victors, start at 7:30 p.m. Saturday at the convention center. Tickets cost $35, $25 and $20 and are available through: Martial Arts and Sports Center in Bridgeville, Mitchell's Restaurant Downtown, Weight Masters Gym, Western Pennsylvania Police Athletic League, 3rd Avenue Gym and Iron City Pro Boxing.