The Fight And The Fury -- Growing Up In The Danger Of The Hilltop Neighborhood Fuels This Boxer's Drive To Win

CUTLINE: ABOVE - LINTON KNOWS FIGHTS ARE WON OR LOST IN THE GYM. HE HONES HIS TIMING BY HITTING A SPEED BAG.

CUTLINE: LEFT - HIS FATHER, EMMETT LINTON SR., LEFT, AND COACH, TOM MUSTIN, CHECK FOR FLAWS IN YOUNG EMMETT'S RING STYLE AT THE AL DAVIES BOYS & GIRLS CLUB IN TACOMA, WHERE HE TRAINS.

CUTLINE: ABOVE - LINTON WATCHES POLICE MAKE AN ARREST AT A GAS-STATION PARKING LOT IN WHAT HAS BECOME A TYPICAL SCENE ON THE HILLTOP.

CUTLINE: RIGHT - AT PIERCE COLLEGE, WHERE HE TAKES BUSINESS CLASSES, LINTON CHATS WITH SOME FRIENDS INCLUDING TEJ WEST, CENTER.

CUTLINE: LINTON CRADLES HIS NEWBORN SON, JERRELL, WHO WAS BORN THE DAY OF LINTON'S FIGHT IN GRAND FORKS, N.D.

CUTLINE: MOST OF THE CREDIT FOR HIS SUCCESS BELONGS TO HIS FAMILY, LINTON SAYS. FROM LEFT IS ROBERT, 14, EMMETT SR., TERESA, EMMETT JR. AND MAURICE.

CUTLINE: WHEREVER HE IS, LINTON CHECKS IN REGULARLY WITH HIS FAMILY. WHILE IN GRAND FORKS, HE CALLED HOME MORE THAN A HANDFUL OF TIMES.

CUTLINE: MINUTES BEFORE HIS FIGHT, LINTON MAKES SURE HIS HEADGEAR IS ON TIGHT.

CUTLINE: IN THE OPENING MINUTES OF HIS BOUT IN THE U.S.-CANADA DUAL MEET, LINTON FINDS OUT HIS OPPONENT HAS MORE FIREPOWER THAN EXPECTED.

CUTLINE: AFTER A ROCKY START IN WHICH HE WAS KNOCKED DOWN TWICE, LINTON RALLIES IN THE FINAL MINUTES, NEARLY BRINGING DOWN THE HOUSE WITH HIS COME-FROM-BEHIND EFFORT.

Forty minutes before the bell, Emmett Linton Jr. is flat on his back. With eyes closed, legs splayed across the floor, arms stretched behind his head, he appears deep in sleep. Or knocked out - a peculiar position for a national champion in the final moments before a fight.

But it always comes to this:

The months of honing and buffeting and charging the body till it's bursting with a fighter's muse all lead to a point when there's nothing left to do but be still. And wait.

It's the hardest part. A cruel time. ``I'm ready to fight right now,'' he had said on the night he flew into Grand Forks, N.D. He had an edge in his voice. He was eager to fight so he could get home, where his girlfriend, Pam, was expecting a baby any day now. ``I was ready yesterday.''

His sport has brought him halfway across the country from his home in Tacoma's Hilltop area to this, the flattest of cities, home of the University of North Dakota Fighting Sioux, where in front of national television cameras he is to face his

Canadian counterpart.

On this night, in a creaking university field house, 12 of Canada's best boxers would go toe-to-toe with a dozen of this country's best.

Linton, 19 and all sinew and muscle, a strong-stoic sort who likes to keep his words - like his punches - short and sweet, is captain of the U.S. squad and the best amateur welterweight (147 pounds) in the nation. In boxing circles, he's the equivalent of a basketball or football All-American, and he's one of only a handful of Puget Sound natives expected to compete in the upcoming Goodwill Games. Yet, except on the Hilltop, he's virtually unknown.

Inside the locker room, the horizontal Linton is stirred by a far-off roar. Only a couple of walls separate him from the crowd. A couple of walls and the longest wait. The crowd roars again. Someone is being pummeled out there. Linton clenches his fists and rests them on his eyes.

The trouble with waiting is it gives you too much time to think.

You think about everything - even things you don't want to think about. Thoughts float in and out, and pretty soon you've got this crazy movie going inside your head.

You think about where you come from. About home and the family that's stood by you through everything, helped you stay alert and clear-eyed while friends all around have been fooled. Swallowed up one by one. Headline: ``SHOOTINGS BECOME WAY OF LIFE ON THE HILLTOP.'' You think about the kids you used to run around with who now lie buried under some cold ground: Evelyn and Bernard and Jerome and the others. Six in the past 2 1/2 years. You wonder why they're dead and you're not.

A teammate approaches, stands over him. Linton opens his eyes. His eyes do most of his talking; they seem at times innocent, open to every possibility; at other times, impenetrable. Caged. The teammate extends an arm. They bump fists without exchanging a word. The teammate

walks out and allows another stream of crowd noise to enter the room. Linton looks around vacantly, then shuts his eyes, taking in the darkness like a last breath.

You think about how far you've gone. And where you're going: The Goodwill Games, the Olympics, the pros. Someday, the World Championship. Emmett Linton Jr., world champion. The thought is almost frightening. You feel on the verge of everything: Gold medals. Jackpot paydays. Fans calling out, ``Hey Champ!'' The body wants to move, ``Let's go, let's get on with it!''

You think about the fight just ahead - the one just on the other side of those walls. A fighter is only as good as his last fight. What if you lose? Every bout is either a step forward into glory or backward into obscurity. The Hilltop is a land of the walking obscure. People live and die there without knowing anything different, invisible even to themselves. That's why every bout is a moment of truth. Every fight is a fight for deliverance.

Linton arrived in Grand Forks five days earlier. And what he found was a place of farms and wholesome, slow-talking people where the horizon in every direction is a straight line.

``The nearest mountain is in Montana,'' said one grinning resident. You could tell that making fun of home turf was a favorite pastime. ``The place is flat and ugly, the people gotta be nice to make up fer it!''

And nice they are. Patient and slow to anger. Any old-timer there will tell you if a man's gotta hurt somebody, much less kill somebody, he'd better have a damn good reason. North Dakota, they'll tell you accurately, has the nation's lowest murder rate. Doors are unlocked all night long.

Linton said he liked the place because Kentucky Fried Chicken delivered. On the Hilltop, where a man can be killed for wearing the wrong

color of shoe laces, fast-food restaurants don't make home deliveries. Too dangerous.

``Pizza Hut, Godfather's, Kentucky Fried - as soon as they find out where you're calling from, they say, `No-o-o-o.' ''

The best fighters always seem to come from places that are too dangerous. The Hilltop area is the only home Linton has ever known. Although it wasn't always so bad. Not when the family first moved there 20 years ago to be close to relatives. Even today, their street is blocks from where the headlines are made.

And, indeed, headlines tell how the area has changed, what with the shootings and drug deals and kids running around flashing gang signs. But the headlines fool you. They give the impression of a neighborhood suddenly run amok instead of a community pushed slowly, over decades, to a point of chaos. There's a difference.

Linton has seen the changes. He's been moved and affected by them, almost beyond words - except to say that through a mysterious grace he's been able to turn the mourning into fuel.

Evelyn Lewis was the first to go. It was late summer 1987, the year Linton took third in the Western Olympic Festival Trials. Linton recalls she was enrolled in a summer-school program and was working two jobs to support her 3-month-old baby. The father, a childhood friend of Linton's, was in jail.

Linton would see Evelyn almost every day at the Al Davies Boys & Girls Club, where he trains. She'd ask how his boxing was going and they'd talk for a while. He loved to tease her. She was the kind who was fun to tease, because she'd pretend to get mad, and then before you know it, they'd both be laughing.

One late night in a 7-Eleven parking lot not far from the club, a gun went off inside a parked car and Evelyn was dead. ``I guess the bullet blew away the bottom half of her heart,'' Linton said. A 15-year-old boy, who had a reputation in the neighborhood as a junior gunslinger, told police he was handing Evelyn a gun when it accidentally went off.

Headline: ``YOUTH CHARGED IN SLAYING OF 16-YEAR-OLD GIRL.''

Linton went to her funeral.

``They'd kept her body for a long time and when I saw her, it didn't even look like her,'' he said. ``She was pale, her face was real big. She was a different person. To know someone, and talk to her just a few days before, and then to see them in a casket, I didn't like it. I decided not to go to funerals after that.''

Almost exactly a year later, another friend went down. Bernard Houston's house was a two-minute walk from Linton's. They went to junior high school together. They used to throw around a Nerf football in the street. Later, they'd run into each other in the neighborhood and trade bits of news. In his last months, Bernard hung out with a bunch of guys who called themselves Crips.

Driving away from a cousin's house one night, Linton saw flashing lights and a crowd gathered on 23rd and Sheridan, a notorious drug-dealing hangout. He ran over. People were saying, ``Bernard's been shot. Bernard's laying under the truck. Bernard's dead . . . ''

Linton worked his way through the crowd and saw Bernard's legs sticking out from under a Jeep Cherokee. He had a bullet wound on the right side of his head. In his hand was a six-shot pistol with one round fired. Police chalked his body and put him on a stretcher.

``I remember him laying on his side, his arm was laying over like this (arched over his head),'' Linton said. ``There was a bunch of blood on his face. He wasn't moving. His eyes were closed.''

Bernard died two days later. ``DRIVE-BY SLAYINGS TAKE A TOLL.''

There would be more. Linton lists them in monotone, like a roll call.

Jerome Satterwhite.

Levi Mack.

Fred Bailey.

Howard Hare.

Howard, who used to box at the Boys & Girls club, was killed while Linton was training for the upcoming match. Shot in the chest under the painted eye of a neighborhood Block Watch sign, across the street from where Linton went to elementary school.

``HILLTOP SLAYING BAFFLES POLICE - `EVERYBODY KNOWS WHO KILLED HIM, BUT NOBODY'S GOING TO SAY.' ''

If there's a hardness in Emmett Linton - and there is, you can see it

in his street-cool homeboy walk and talk, you can see it in his eyes when he fights - it comes from having so many sad stories rolling around in his head.

The hardness comes off, though, when he comes home. There, another Emmett Linton emerges. The one who studies diligently for his business classes at Pierce College. The one who washes the dishes and vacuums the carpets. The one who every few weeks mows one neighbor's yard and washes another neighbor's car without pay.

That's the one his mom and dad raised. The only one they'll tolerate.

``Discipline. Discipline. And responsibility. That's what kept our family together,'' says his mother, Teresa. ``I still tell them today, `If you get in trouble, I might come get you one time. I might. But if you get in trouble a second time, you might as well tell them to just keep you down there.' ''

None of the four kids have ever been in that kind of trouble. Emmett - the middle boy, the quiet one, the sickly one who as a child went to the hospital every other week for his asthma - has never smoked a cigarette or drank a beer.

In a community of such extreme vices, it takes a certain adamancy to overcome temptation. It also takes a certain adamancy, and abstinence, to become a champion. Emmett first laced on a pair of boxing gloves when he was 6, and he's been in training ever since.

The Linton kids were always just tough enough to earn respect from the neighborhood kids. The most hardened drug dealers on the corner would say hi but knew not to bother asking them. There was something about those Lintons.

Emmett Sr. and Teresa have been married 21 years. Friends call them a working-class version of the Huxtables. He's a foreman at the Puget Sound Naval Shipyard and she's a manager at the Tacoma Housing Authority. They live modestly, but the kids have never been without.

The younger Emmett says when he becomes world champion, the first thing he'll do is make sure his girlfriend Pam and their soon-to-be-born child are provided for. If and when they get married, he says, it will be in a boxing ring. The second thing he'll do is open a business and name it after his parents: ``Emmett & Teresa's Sporting Goods.''

Teresa is the spiritual leader of the

family. Emmett Sr. is the disciplinarian and coach. He was the one who made sure his sons got up at 5:30 a.m. to do their roadwork: 2 miles minimum, 3 miles preferred. Daughter Tonetta escaped this. The routine started with oldest son Maurice, an accomplished boxer himself. Then Emmett Jr. And then Robert, whose heroes are Michael Jordan, Mike Tyson and his two older brothers.

Fights are won or lost in training.

Tom Mustin, coach for all the Linton boys, drills that into his fighters' heads. If you don't put out in the gym, you'll be put out in the ring. It's that simple. More than any other person outside the family, Mustin has shaped what Linton has become.

A heavy-set man with a back as broad as a hillside, Mustin turns soft recalling the 6-year-old Linton having to stand on a milking stool to hit the speed bag. That's determination.

``From the beginning, nobody had to push him to train. He was in the gym every day,'' Mustin says.

``He was a natural. A lot of them you have to work with and work with. For a few kids, things just click naturally. The combinations come without thinking. That's how Emmett was.''

If Linton had a weakness as a young fighter, it was that he was too good. He was knocking people out at age 12. Mustin says being so good at such a young age can make you big-headed. Overconfident.

Linton lost his first two fights (and ran crying to the locker room, according to his mother). Then he went seven years without another loss. Sometime during that string of 140 or so victories, whispers of ``future champion'' began to flit about the gym.

He's fought 240 bouts, winning 225 in a 13-year amateur career. He finished first in the Junior Olympics two years in a row. Last year he finished second in the national championships. Last February, at the national championships in Colorado Springs, Colo., he became the No. 1-rated amateur welterweight in the country. A national champion.

It was hard to keep his dreams in check after that.

He had to keep reminding himself that others had risen to such heights in the amateurs and crashed in the pros. Everyone - from his mother and father to Mustin and even Linton himself - is wary about him turning pro.

The pros are a whole different game. Money and connections dictate everything. In the pros, you fight many more rounds. You wear smaller gloves and no headgear. Your brain is bandied about like Jell-O in a can.

It was hard enough at first for Teresa to see her sons box - ``I didn't get them into it. Their father did that. I was upset. Even now I still get nervous.''

The only way Team Linton would allow its boxer to turn pro is if he gets a lucrative contract, and a gold medal in the Goodwill Games or the Olympics could ensure that. He'd start off as a prizefighter instead of a pug.

If he never makes it to the pros, there's always Plan B: Get a job. A perfectly respectable option. Emmett Sr. and Teresa have insisted that their son finish college no matter what.

But Plan B is never as exciting. Or as romantic. The spice and adventure in his life has come from boxing. His bedroom walls are lined with the

spoils of his battles: medals, plaques, trophies, ribbons, newspaper clippings. He's traveled all over the country. He's fought on U.S. national teams against Korea, Poland, the Soviet Union and Italy.

Next would be Canada.

Mustin couldn't accompany Linton to the U.S.-Canada duel because coaches for international competitions are appointed by a national organization. And like most good coaches, Mustin felt apprehensive about having someone else instruct his fighter. No one knows Linton like he does. Would the new coach see that Linton has a bad habit of keeping his hands too low?

The U.S. team arrived in Grand Forks on a brisk Tuesday night, and they trained lightly every day: a morning run and calisthenics, and a two-hour workout starting at noon. The team had fun together. They hung out at shopping malls during free time and gave each other nicknames. Emmett ``The Rock-Nose'' Linton. He didn't like it.

Before he went to bed the night before the fight, Linton knocked on a teammate's door. It was the heavyweight, Javier Alvarez, who led the team in prayer before fights. Linton asked if Alvarez would pray for his child. He just wanted it to be born healthy, that's all.

Emmett Linton Jr. is flat on his back in the locker room. He's been there 20 minutes, opening his eyes only occasionally. The journey has led him to this moment, and the quiet has given an order to it all. Now the time has come to let everything else fade. There is one fight, one opponent.

He lifts himself up in a single fluid motion and walks out into the field house. There's an occupied look in his eyes that warns people to stay away. This is not a time to talk.

The crowd of 2,400 is raucous. A steady deep-earth rumble comes from all the feet hitting the bleachers. Some wave U.S. flags, a few wave Canadian flags. The U.S. boxers have won the first five fights. There's already talk of a sweep. This next bout, though, might be tough. The word is that this particular Canadian is a destroyer. Has a secret punch called ``the cool-and-deadly.'' He put a guy in the hospital with it in his last fight.

In a few minutes, Linton is in the ring, under the lights, bigger than life, loosening his arms and legs, swiveling his neck, working up a sweat. The Canadian in the opposite corner looks huge. He has the shoulders and arms of a light-heavyweight. For a brief moment their eyes meet, and both turn away.

The bell rings for round one.

Linton meets his opponent in the center of the ring. They circle, measuring each other. Linton is a southpaw who uses a stinging jab to offset an opponent's rhythm. The Canadian is compact and coiled. His jab is more a range-finder to set up his powerful right hand.

They both throw tentative jabs. Linton connects with a straight right.

A testing blow. What can this guy take? The Canadian paws with his jab then suddenly moves to the side and throws a sweeping right that misses. The cool-and-deadly. A sneaky punch that comes from an awkward angle.

They exchange blows. The Canadian lands a thunderous shot to the liver. Linton retreats. He's tasted his opponent's power. They exchange again, and again it ends with a shot to Linton's body. There's a dense, watery sound to body shots that you don't hear on television.

A subtle change comes over Linton's eyes. He dances away. A silent agreement has been made: The Canadian is the puncher, Linton is the boxer. The bull and the matador. For a full minute, the Canadian charges while Linton tries to ward him off with quick, scoring jabs.

The Canadian lands two hard combinations, head-body, head-body. Linton tilts backward and pushes out two lazy jabs. He pushes out another. The Canadian counters with a left hook - BOOM. Linton goes down, toppled forward on all fours. The crowd gasps.

His guard was too low. Linton gets up on one wobbly leg, and then another. He backs into the ropes. His knees play tricks on him while the referee counts to eight. Only 30 seconds left. The Canadian charges with a fury, pounding Linton to the head and body. Linton clinches and looks to his corner, where Coach Mustin would be. There is fear in his eyes now. The Canadian lands one last hook that snaps Linton's head back at the end of the round.

Round two.

They meet in the center, but Linton immediately goes into retreat. The Canadian pursues, ploddingly. Linton uses his speed to score quick punches to the top of his opponent's head. Bip-bip-bip-bip. Feint, duck and slide. Bip-bip-bip-bip-bip. The crowd is on edge. The U.S. sweep is at stake.

The Canadian bulls Linton into a corner and blasts his body. Linton clinches, pushes off and sends a straight left, but his opponent has already slipped to the side. BOOM. Linton teeters backward and falls to the canvas. It was the cool-and-deadly. Linton didn't see it. He pulls himself up and takes the eight-count. He looks to his corner for help.

The Canadian moves in for the kill. He throws bombs to Linton's gut, 1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8 blows in a row. Pause. Another 1-2-3-4-5-6! Someone is groaning, and it's hard to tell who it is. The Canadian shakes out his arms, and flails some more: 1-2-3-4-5 thumps to the rib cage and shoulders.

He steps back and looks at Linton, as if to say, ``What does it take to put you away?''

The Canadian throws another flurry, but his punches begin to slow.

For a split-second, Linton stands in the corner, hands up but motionless. A look of defiance comes over him. He's taken his opponent's best. There's nothing else to fear.

They move back out into the center. Linton peppers the Canadian with jabs and straight lefts. The Canadian is breathing heavily. His punches lack steam. Linton circles and connects with a hard right hook to the side of the face. The Canadian looks stunned, frozen. One of his knees buckles slightly.

The Canadian tries to charge but Linton stands firm. Then, he answers with a charge of his own. The secret agreement is changing. The tide is turning, and the crowd senses it. The two fight in the center of the ring, but now Linton lands the most telling blows.

In the last minute of the round, it's the Canadian who's inching backward. Linton spears him with a right-left combination that sends him to the ropes. The crowd cheers wildly. The Canadian fights back. The round ends just as Linton plants a straight left into his opponent's face.

Round three.

They touch gloves, then circle each other warily. Neither throws a punch in the opening moments. They pose, waiting for the other to start. Linton jumps in with a three-punch flurry. The Canadian answers. Linton steps in with another flurry, and the Canadian slips to the right and

swings wildly. The cool-and-deadly is uncontrolled. And tired. Linton ducks it easily.

Linton charges, winging punches from all directions now - piston-like. The Canadian reels. There's a point in every bout when one fighter breaks the will of the other. They call it ``taking his heart.'' It happens quickly and silently. It's the essence of boxing: the imposition of one will against another. It's what makes boxing dramatic. And obscene.

Linton backs his foe into the ropes and connects with a flurry to the head and body, punctuated with a clubbing straight left to the mouth. Blood

escapes from between his opponent's lips. The Canadian turns his back and runs to the other side of the ring, Linton in hot pursuit. On the other side, they face each other, and Linton knows he's done it. He's taken his heart.

With a new fire, Linton unleashes a rapid-fire barrage that ends with a thumping left to the head. The Canadian staggers. The crowd goes wild. The referee steps in to give the Canadian a mandatory eight-count. The Canadian is hanging onto the ropes, holding himself up, and wiping blood from his mouth. Only 20 seconds left, if he could only hang on. Linton moves in to finish him. But he's tired now, too, breathing in deep gasps. They clinch and the sweat from their bodies holds them together like one living thing. Two fighters in a dance, blood brothers now and forever.

The bell rings. The fight is over.

The winner: out of the blue corner . . . The crowd drowns out the rest. Linton runs to a corner, jumps on the ropes and raises his hands in victory. The field house erupts in cheers, half of them on their feet. There's no feeling like this. He reaches for the ceiling and closes his eyes. This is why you fight. You fight for this moment. You fight for the people in your life, and when you win, you can tell them there's nothing that can't be overcome. You fight to hear this houseful of noise!

At the post-fight banquet, Linton sits quietly glowing over his two blessings that day. He won the fight. And early that morning, he became the father to a healthy 6-pound boy. Jerrell Ellis Linton.

It will take a long time for all of it to sink in.

Halfway through the banquet, Linton walks over and sits with the man he beat. His name is Greg Johnson. They are friends now. They chew on egg rolls together and talk like two guys who'd never fought each other.

Johnson, an amiable 22-year-old, Jamaican-born, lives in Montreal. He says he ``lost his legs'' in the middle of the second round. Linton isn't that strong, he says, but he had a stronger will to win tonight. Johnson thanks God no one was seriously hurt. ``Now I have to ask Him why I lost.''

Linton says he was intimidated at the start of the fight because his opponent looked so strong. But after the second knockdown, ``I told myself I wasn't gonna run from this guy. So I planted my feet and started walking forward. He was already breathing hard. I decided I was gonna punch with him and things turned out right.''

Still, Linton gives himself a ``D'' for his performance. He says he and Coach Mustin will have to work on defense when he gets back home.

Between egg rolls, Linton and Johnson laugh and joke privately with each other. There is mutual respect in their voices. Linton knows he came close to losing. In amateur boxing, the number rather than the power of punches is what counts. If it had been a professional fight, wherein power punches and knockdowns are worth extra points, the decision might have gone the other way.

He and Johnson have much in common. A mutual hero, for instance, Sugar Ray Leonard. And each comes from one of those ``too-dangerous'' places in the world. The teeming ghettos of Jamaica for Johnson. The Hilltop for Linton. The culture of poverty crosses all boundaries. Struggle unites all fighters.

They both wear the colors of African nationalism. Linton wears them on a purse he wears around his neck. Johnson, on his leather aviator's hat. The symbolism joins them in a common history:

Black is for the people.

Red is for spilled blood.

Green is for the land.

Gold is for the harvest, and the hope for the future.

Linton and Johnson would party together that night before flying off in separate directions the next morning. The next step is the Goodwill Games.

They could meet again there. Johnson is a shoo-in for the Canadian team. Linton is a favorite in the U.S. Goodwill boxing trials June 8-9 in Las Vegas. But a lot must happen between now and then: Getting home safely. Reuniting with family and friends. A short rest. Getting back into the gym. Then months of training. Miles of roadwork. And the hardest part: the wait.

MIKE SIEGEL IS A SEATTLE TIMES STAFF PHOTOGRAPHER.

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Cover On the Verge

Growing up in the Hilltop neighborhood made boxer Emmett Linton Jr. a contender. Writer Alex Tizon and photographer Mike Siegel track him from the streets of Tacoma to the eve of the Goodwill Games and, with any luck, on to the Olympics and beyond.

Written by Alex Tizon

Photographed by Mike Siegel