On, Brave Old Army Team

"Why is that?"

"I think Al loves boxing too much. He's so happy when he's out there, he doesn't want to end it. He wishes he could fight forever."

Fracker's last preliminary bout in the Golden Gloves was no pleasure. David Gaines, tall, rangy and fast, came out with tassels on his shoes and pranced and strutted around the ring several times before throwing a punch. Fracker tried to stalk him with a careful, one-speed-forward style, but Gaines kept circling. When they did mix it up, the taller man clinched and hailed rabbit punches down on Fracker's head and neck. The referee issued numerous warnings and the first round ended to scattered boos. In the second round Fracker landed a flurry of left and right hooks that slowed Gaines' frug to a fox-trot. In the next clinch Gaines was disqualified for heeling—dragging his glove laces across Fracker's face. A bloody swatch of skin tore loose from the bridge of Fracker's nose and landed like a fluttering insect on the canvas.

"This is the kind of fight that tests your self-righteousness," Fracker said afterward. "Disqualification isn't a knockout. When people ask you about it you feel like screaming. 'Yeah, but I was killing him.' "

"Will you say that?" someone asked.

"I guess I'll just say that I won."

Fracker coasted into the semifinals where he was to meet John Davis, the champ's younger brother. As his fame at West Point increased, Fracker grew edgy. "People are depending on me to win," he complained the day before the fight. "I'm afraid they'll be angry if I let them down." He seemed innocently incapable of comprehending that someone could just root for him, be his fan. And he quickly became one of the most popular fighters in the Gloves. His looks, his style, his every glance and gesture make Fracker every father's dream of an all-American son. Blond hair falls easily over the rim of his forehead...just so. Military, yes, but it almost could have been styled by Mr. Kenneth for a title bout. And those sea-blue eyes: not vicious even under fire. Gentle to determined seems the extent of their range. When Al Fracker steps between the ropes, sheds the purple and white robe that is more like an opera cape, throws the obligatory phantom punches, he appears neither savage nor fearful, simply...wonderful, a burden he will have to learn to live with.

The Gloves semifinals were held in New York's Felt Forum. Eddie Davis flattened his opponent in the first round and the loser had to be carried from the ring. But Fracker's bout with John Davis went the distance, consisting of three rounds of ferocious and virtually continuous slugging, and ending with the two exhausted fighters collapsing in each other's arms.

Fracker moved aggressively in the first round, but Davis countered with thunderous rights to the cheek and jaw. The cut from the Gaines fight split open when a Davis right snapped Fracker's head back like a dummy in a simulated auto crash. A web of blood spun out over Fracker's face and Davis' glove. In the second round Fracker seemed to be gaining precision if not strength. Or maybe the openings were larger. The third round was all Fracker's, who stalked and struck at will. But Davis remained standing to the end.

"How do you feel?" was everyone's first question.