Tacoma Boxing Club

Application Fee $85

Monthly Gym Dues $100

We accept ages 8-40

Male and Female

For the past 50 years, coach Tom Mustin has dedicated his life and considerable skills giving hope to hundreds of youths, guiding them into lives of productivity and helping many to become recognized around the world as skilled athletes.

A gifted coach, Tom trained young athletes in football and basketball which yielded incredible results, some starting football in middle school then going on to the University of Washington and into the NFL.

In 1974, Tom took over as head coach at the Tacoma Boxing Club upon the departure of head trainer Joe Clough. An article in Sports Illustrated said the Club would never be the same without Clough, and this just served to make Tom more determined than ever to prove them wrong.

“I was bound and determined to be as good or better,” he said, and that’s just what he did.

Among his many awards and recognitions, in 1983 he won the Pierce County News Maker of Tomorrow Award, voted by TIME Magazine; Coach of the Year from USA Boxing in 1991; he was elected to the Washington State Sports Hall of Fame in 1996; won National Coach of the Year from the U.S. Olympic Committee, selected by USA Boxing, in 1997; and Coach of the Year for Boxing from the U.S. Olympic Committee in 2000. 

In 2015, Tom was voted into the National Golden Gloves Hall of Fame then was inducted into the Tacoma-Pierce County Sports Hall of Fame in 2016. He received the Doug McArthur Lifetime Achievement Award from the Tacoma Athletic Commission in 2018, and in May 2023 he was inducted into the Stadium High School Athletic Hall of Fame from where he graduated in 1964.

His coaching record is just as impressive going back to 1978 when he coached his first National Champion, Dwayne Jamison. Tom was a coach on the 1983 U.S. boxing team for the Junior World Championships and the 1990 Goodwill Games. He was an alternate coach for the U.S. Olympic team in 1992 and 1996, and later served as head coach for the U.S. team that participated in the 1995 Pan American Games, the 1998 Goodwill Games, and the 1999 World Championships. 

In 2000, Tom was named head coach for the U.S. Olympic team that participated in Sydney.  Now, boxing champ and 2022 Tacoma Golden Gloves Golden Boy Dedrick Crocklem, who Tom coached going back to when Crocklem was 9 years old, qualified last month for Team USA at the U.S. Olympic Boxing Trials.

Tom credits formal education in the sport as a key to his success including U.S. Olympic Committee courses. Support from his wife, Judy, also kept him going as did support from his employer, the Tacoma News Tribune, which kept him on payroll throughout all his travels away from work.

After coming this far, 77-year-old Tom has no plans to stop. “I went in it because it gave me a purpose. You get paid the most when somebody tells you they got to change their life around, to strive to do everything to stay in the program. That means more than money.”

When Emmett Linton Sr.’s first-born son, Maurice, was just 7 years old, Emmett got him involved in boxing and it became a big part of both their lives. That was in 1974 and with the year 2024 now underway, Emmett marks his 50th year in the sport.

“I got involved in the sport because my oldest son was involved and I tried to learn as much as I could,” he said. “I was coming down to the gym to watch him every day.”

He later welcomed sons Emmett Jr. and Robert into the world. Maurice fought for four years in the U.S. Army boxing team and Emmett “Laser” Linton grew to become an accomplished boxer as a featured fighter on ESPN, touring the globe, participating in the Goodwill Games, and winning two world titles: the World Boxing Council Continental Americas Super Welterweight title in 1994 and the World Boxing Union Welterweight championship in 1995. Robert won Golden Gloves Championship in 1994, 1995 and 1996, and Golden Boy 1994; is a 1994 USA vs. Mexico dual champion; participated in the 1996 Olympic trials; and his professional record stands at 13-2 with six knockouts. 

Developing into a talented boxing coach, Emmett Sr. accepted coach Tom Mustin’s invitation to be his assistant coach after legendary trainer Joe Clough left the Tacoma Boy’s Club in 1974. Linton studied the sport and the young men in the ring to learn all aspects of boxing.

“I learned from watching other boxers. I wanted to learn the basics – how your feet should be and how your hand should come back… That’s what we do with the kids,” he said. “Where you learn a lot is when you go to the national competition and you see the various coaches and boxers and you learn. Through the years, that’s what we’ve done.”

Over the years, Emmett Sr. coached and was a positive influence on so many youths that he can’t count them all. Some of them are in their 60s now and they still come up to shake his hand whenever they see him. 

“A lot of them will come back to see us and there’s just so many of them. Some of them stayed for a while, some stayed for six months, some stayed for two years… I have a hard time keeping up,” he laughed.

For Emmett Sr., and Tom Mustin, it’s always about the team and this has been perhaps their greatest strength. When there’s a tournament, everyone goes rather than favoring one boxer over the others.

“Tom and I have respect for the sport and the team. We’ve had a lot of coaches come through for a while then they want to have their own team and leave. We haven’t been like that,” he said. 

Today at 77 years old, Emmett Linton Sr. is proud that Tacoma Golden Gloves marks its 75th anniversary this year. He says he has no plans to retire from coaching. In fact, he pulls no punches about it, saying, “I will do this until I die.”