Asgari to Succeed Lewis as Coach : Wrestling: Former All-American and NCAA qualifier for the Titans hopes to keep program afloat on very limited resources.

Ardeshir Asgari, an Iran defector who became an All-American wrestler at Cal State Fullerton in 1986, was named the Titans’ wrestling coach Monday, Athletic Director Bill Shumard said.

Asgari replaces Dan Lewis, the 10-year Fullerton coach who resigned in May to accept the head wrestling and assistant football coaching positions at Colorado School of Mines in Golden.

Asgari, 29, was a two-time NCAA qualifier for the Titans at 158 pounds and placed sixth in the NCAA meet in 1986, his junior season. He went 34-6 that year and 36-4 as a senior, when he was ranked second in the nation by Amateur Wrestling News but didn’t place in the 1987 NCAA meet.

Asgari became an assistant coach for the Titans the next season, but his coaching career was interrupted when he was arrested and charged with selling $35,000 worth of heroin to a police informant as three Los Angeles police detectives watched in December, 1987.

Asgari spent more than seven months in jail as he awaited trial but was eventually acquitted in July, 1988. Prosecutors alleged that Asgari arranged several meetings with police informants and provided a sample of the drugs in a Fullerton parking lot, and he was arrested with a briefcase filled with low-grade heroin.

During his trial, Asgari said he was set up by an Iranian man who he had befriended because he felt sorry that the man had no friends and no money. Asgari testified that he wasn’t sure what was in the briefcase but thought it might be dirt.

Asgari, who earned a degree in criminal justice in 1990, is suing the LAPD for $5 million on grounds that he was falsely arrested and that the evidence was fabricated. He gave testimony in the suit on Monday in Fullerton Superior Court.

Asgari, who is now pursuing his master’s degree, resumed his coaching duties in 1988 and will have the difficult task of trying to keep the Titan wrestling program afloat this year with very limited resources.

He’s receiving a minimal coaching stipend, believed to be in the $10,000 range, and the school is only allocating about $40,000 for student-athlete grants and operating expenses.

“We’re putting every resource available into it to keep the program going,” Shumard said.

The program previously had an annual budget in the $120,000 range, largely because of the support of Dr. Arthur Osborne, a West Covina orthopedic surgeon who had donated $60,000 to $80,000 a year to the team. But Shumard and Asgari said Osborne chose not to continue that support this year.

“I hope to get him involved again,” Asgari said. “I really believe I’ll also get more people involved in the program.”

Asgari was a 1982 graduate of Dr. Shariati High School in Karag, Iran, where he had a 148-15 wrestling record in four years, including a 40-0 mark as a senior. He was a member of Iran’s army wrestling team and was competing in the military world championships in Caracas, Venezuela, when he defected in 1982.

He spent time in Venezuela, France and Spain before he was granted refugee status by the United States. Asgari wrestled at Cal State Bakersfield for two years before transferring to Fullerton in 1985.