WRESTLING WITH RED TAPE : Ara Parseghian’s Cousin Hopes to Be First Armenian to Win a Gold Medal for U.S.

When Turkey routed the Armenians from the country early this century, killing about a million and a half of them in the process, much of Michael Parseghian’s family was lost. He escaped to Greece and later immigrated to the United States, where he married a French orphan. They had a son, Ara.

Michael’s brother escaped to Soviet Armenia, where he had a son, Tigran. Michael, who since has died, last saw his brother about 30 years ago, when he visited their home in Yerevan, Soviet Armenia’s capital. Before Michael returned to the United States, he gave his nephew, Tigran, a watch.

Fast forward to 1986. Ara Parseghian, the former Notre Dame football coach, received a call from an aunt in Detroit, who said she had heard from a young Armenian in Los Angeles who claimed to be Tigran’s son.

“You hear these kinds of things, and you have to be a little suspicious,” Parseghian said this week by telephone from his office in South Bend, Ind. “I have very few living relatives that I know of.”

Intrigued, Parseghian made arrangements when he was in Los Angeles as a CBS commentator for the USC-Notre Dame football game last fall to take the young Armenian and his wife to dinner.

When Parseghian arrived at the restaurant, one of the first things he noticed was the young man’s watch. It was the same style Michael Parseghian always wore. Parseghian realized it was the watch his father gave to Tigran, who passed it on to his son, Gagik Barseghian. (Parseghian is the spelling used by eastern Armenians. Barseghian is prefered by western Armenians.)

While Ara Parseghian had never heard of his second cousin, Gagik Barseghian heard much as a child in Yerevan about Ara Parseghian.

When Gagik showed promise in soccer at age eight, his family told him he would be famous in sports some day, perhaps as famous as his cousin Ara, the American football coach.

Barseghian did become famous in Armenia, not as a soccer player but as a Greco-Roman wrestler. Three times he was the Soviet Union’s national junior champion. He also won a world junior championship. In 1984, he might have represented the Soviets in the 136 1/2-pound category at the Summer Olympics in Los Angeles but for the boycott.

“I was ready, but I’m not lucky, like many, many sportsmen who can’t come,” he said during a recent interview at the offices of The California Courier, an English-language Armenian newspaper in Glendale.

“After 1984, I think maybe I go to the United States. I have many, many relatives here. My cousin is a very famous man here.”

Barseghian married an American woman he met in Yerevan and, in March 1986, moved to Los Angeles, where there are about 200,000 Armenians, an estimated 40,000 of whom immigrated from Soviet Armenia.

Sixteen months later, Barseghian, 28, is working

toward his goal of becoming the first Armenian-born athlete to win an Olympic gold medal for the United States.

There are a number of obstacles. Foremost among them is the matter of receiving his U.S. citizenship, which requires five years under normal circumstances.

U.S.A. Wrestling, the national governing body for the sport, lobbied successfully in 1984 on behalf of a Turkish immigrant, who received his citizenship in time for the Olympics even though he had applied less than two years before. But he had been in the country since 1979. At the time of the 1988 Summer Olympics in Seoul, Barseghian will have lived in the United States for less than three years.

While U.S.A. Wrestling officials are not optimistic, they say they are hopeful. Greg Strobel, the national teams director, said they have received a promise of support from California Gov. George Deukmejian, who is of Armenian descent.

But even if Barseghian beats the federal bureaucracy, there is an International Olympic Committee rule requiring an athlete to be a citizen for three years before participating in the Games. To overcome that, Barseghian would have to receive waivers from the Soviet Union’s wrestling federation, the international wrestling federation and the IOC.

After all that, Barseghian still would have to make the U.S. team at next year’s Olympic trials by beating the wrestlers who are ranked ahead of him.

As for whether he could do that, there will be some indication in Durham, N.C., later this month, when he competes in the world championship trials at the U.S. Olympic Festival. According to the international wrestling federation rules, which are different from IOC rules, Barseghian is eligible for the U.S. team at the world championships because he is a resident of the country.

Strobel said he believes Barseghian could win the trials and earn a berth on the U.S. team at the world championships, which are scheduled for Sept. 2-5 in Cleremont-Feerand, France.

“He has great natural ability and is very good in his technique,” said Strobel, a former two-time NCAA champion from Oregon State. “He uses the European style, which involves more finesse than the Americans’ tendency to be more physical and do more pummeling.”

Even though Barseghian had not wrestled in a major competition since 1984, he finished fourth last May at the U.S. Open championships in Albany, N.Y.

Strobel called Barseghian’s performance in Albany “respectable,” but said he was even better a month later at an international competition in Concord, Calif.

“He didn’t place in the top six, but he beat some decent people,” Strobel said. “One of his problems is he took a few years off. To come back in any sport, particularly one as physically demanding as wrestling, is tough. Concord was a better gauge of what he could do if he was in shape.”

Barseghian since has been at the U.S. training camp in Albany, N.Y. Strobel said he received a call this week from one of the coaches, Joe Demeo, who told him Barseghian has looked better than any of the other wrestlers at 136 1/2 pounds.

Another of Barseghian’s supporters is the U.S. Olympic coach, Pavel Katsen, a former wrestler and coach for the Soviet national team who immigrated to the United States.

When Barseghian arrived in the United States, he spoke Armenian and Russian but only a few words of English. Katsen, whose native language is Russian, immediately adopted him as a protege.

But communication was a barrier for Barseghian in other areas.

“When I met him, his wife did most of the talking,” Parseghian said. “I came to realize that he understood what was being said, but he had to grope for words. He has a degree in physical education and sports information. I told him I could help him get a job at the university level, but he had to learn the language.”

Barseghian has done reasonably well. When an interview was arranged with a reporter, the editor of The California Courier, Harut Sassounian, volunteered to interpret. But Barseghian was able to answer most of the questions in English, only occasionally needing Sassounian’s assistance.

Nevertheless, Barseghian remains unemployed because of a rigorous training schedule that requires him to work out 6 1/2 hours a day, seven days a week.

Now separated from his wife, he lives in an upstairs apartment in a relative’s house in Montrose and needs little money to subsist. But he was stunned to learn he would also have to pay all of his own training expenses, including travel to and from competitions.

“In the Soviet Union, I didn’t have to worry about anything,” he said. “The Soviet Union took care of everything for me. I didn’t have to worry about a job, money or training. Here, I find out that if you are a world-class athlete, you are on your own. So if you can’t find a club to sponsor you, or if you don’t have money on your own, it doesn’t matter how great you are.”

It’s not as if he weren’t warned.

“When I asked to leave the Soviet Union, the officials said, ‘Why are you going?’ They said the Soviet Union was good for amateur sportsmen. They said, ‘If you’re going to the United States, it will be hard for you. Only professionals have a good situation there.’ ”

When Barseghian saw the Soviet officials last month in Concord, he told them they were right.

They invited him to join his former teammates in the Soviet team picture.

“They were trying to get him back,” Sassounian said.

Barseghian rejected the invitation.

“Yes, I am somewhat disappointed in how amateur athletes are treated,” he said. “But I enjoy life here. So that makes up for all other deficiencies.”

Barseghian’s transition from a state-supported amateur in the Soviet Union to a non-supported amateur in the United States might have been even more difficult for him because of his personality.

“I’m editor of a newspaper,” Sassounian said. “I get to know things in the community quite fast. But it took me a year to hear that there’s an athlete of his class in the community.

“He’s really rare for an Armenian. Most Armenians, and I am one of them, are not shy about expressing themselves. But he’s a very shy guy, a very humble guy. He doesn’t brag.

“On one hand, he feels very nationalistic, proud of his ethnic background. On the other hand, he felt sad because no one was coming forward to help him out. I told him the reason no one was coming forward was because no one knew he existed, starting with myself.

“It just so happened that when I met him, he started competing here. I wrote one legitimate news article about a championship he won. Since then, my phone has not stopped ringing.”

Sassounian said the executive board of the Armenian General Athletic Union and Boy Scouts, an international organization with headquarters in Glendale, has decided to sponsor Barseghian. The group arranged for him to return from Albany for the opening ceremony Sunday at Glendale High School of the 12th Navasartian Games, a multi-sport competition involving Armenian athletes from several U.S. cities and Argentina.

“The community is so proud of him they’re going to try to raise funds to cover his expenses,” Sassounian said. “He has all the qualifications of an Olympic champion except for plane tickets.”

There also is the matter of a berth on the U.S. team.

Asked if the Soviets would object to Barseghian competing against them, Strobel said they might even enjoy it.

“I don’t think they would stand in his way, especially in Greco-Roman, where they are so much better than anyone else,” he said. “They would win the team championship even if they gave away 4 of their 10 guys. I think they would welcome him. They like the competition.”

A more crucial question is whether Barseghian can obtain his citizenship before the Seoul Games.

“If the President declared him a U.S. citizen, I’m sure he would be able to compete for the U.S. team,” Strobel said. “Is the Gipper still a Notre Dame fan?”