CAL STATE FULLERTON NOTEBOOK / MIKE DiGIOVANNA : Cost-Containment Plan Knocks Out Wrestling Program

Cal State Fullerton coaches and key athletic department employees recommended to the Athletics Council Monday that the school downgrade football from Division I-A to a I-AA cost-containment level, but the proposal did not receive unanimous support from the staff.

Titan first-year wrestling Coach Ardeshir Asgari did not back the recommendation for an obvious reason--to do so would be like cutting his program’s throat.

Included in the athletic department’s budget scenarios for 1993-94 was a stipulation that if the school were to keep football in any form next season, the wrestling program would have to be eliminated, for budget and Title IX reasons.

So the bubble that the Titan football team has been residing on for the past few weeks has had to expand to accommodate the wrestling team, too.

“The whole team is very worried and very down,” said Asgari, a former Fullerton wrestler whose team opens the 1992-93 season Friday at Arizona State. “Every time I see them, the first thing they ask me is, ‘What’s new?’ The only thing we can do is wait and see what happens.”

Asgari had been pretty excited about this season until news of his program’s uncertain future spread last week. The Titans have four outstanding wrestlers, led by junior Laszlo Molnar, a two-time NCAA qualifier who is ranked 13th nationally at 177 pounds by Amateur Wrestling News.

Fullerton also returns Michael Grubbs at 118 pounds, Jeff Maes at 126 and Dwayne Buth at 177. All three seniors have participated in the NCAA tournament, and Asgari feels he has a good crop of underclassmen who should make the Titans competitive.

But now he’s not so sure.

“It’s a bad situation not knowing what’s going to happen to the program, and it does affect us, especially because this is more of an individual sport,” Asgari said. “On a team, if three or four guys were affected, the others could keep going, but if one or two guys don’t do well in wrestling, it’s hard to do well as a team.”

Pocket change: The athletic department’s recommendation supports the establishment of a I-AA football program, but only if the university or students are willing to pick up the tab.

According to budget projections, the athletic department would still need an additional $265,000 to play I-AA football next season, and coaches don’t want that money to come out of their program’s pockets.

They are asking that the university allocate more funds to the athletic department for football or that students be required to pay additional athletic fees to cover costs.

“We think there’s a value in having football, but we’d like the university to find alternative ways to pay for it,” Titan women’s gymnastics Coach Lynn Rogers said. “The other sports here don’t want to be cut to have football. We’re done picking up the tab.”

The Athletics Council is soliciting input on the football issue from campus and community members and is expected to make its recommendation--whether to retain I-A football, drop to I-AA or drop the sport--to school President Milton Gordon by Monday.

Drop it: The Fullerton Academic Senate probably will make a recommendation to Gordon on the football matter this week, and judging from senate discussions in past years and past weeks, it’s fairly easy to predict the group’s stance on football--they want to get rid of it.

A motion was made at Thursday’s meeting to suspend the football program indefinitely, and when senate chairperson Joyce Flocken asked if there were any seconds to the motion, hands quickly shot up around the room.

Football-bashing seems to be an annual tradition in the Academic Senate, which recommended to Gordon in the winter of 1990 that the school drop football. Gordon, of course, went against recommendations by the Academic Senate and Athletics Council and kept the sport.

Gordon was at Thursday’s meeting but walked out after the motion to suspend the program was made. Time ran out on the football discussion, which lasted about an hour, and talks are scheduled to resume today.

End of an era: Gene Murphy’s 13-year tenure as Titan football coach will come to an end on Saturday when Fullerton (2-8) closes the season with a 1 p.m. Big West Conference game at Nevada Las Vegas (5-5).

Murphy, who announced Oct. 1 that he would retire after the season, didn’t admit Monday to having any profound feelings about his final game, but did say, “I’m going to fire (offensive coordinator) Jim Chaney with three seconds left. He’s been bugging me for years to fire him.”

Asked if he would take any risks out of the ordinary in terms of play-calling, Murphy said, “Yeah, we’re going to get real crazy--we’re going to try not to fumble the football.”

The Titans have tied NCAA single-season records for fumbles (68) and fumbles lost (39) this year.

In control: First-year men’s basketball Coach Brad Holland, the former Laker player and UCLA assistant, has always downplayed his transition from assistant to head coach, saying the move was “only 18 inches over on the bench.”

But after spending his first night in the Titan driver’s seat during Saturday’s exhibition game, Holland admitted his palms were a little sweaty as he gripped the steering wheel of his new team.

“I was like I was for any game as an assistant or player--my stomach was churning and there was a lot of nervous energy,” Holland said. “I wasn’t throwing up or anything, but I was a little nervous.”

Titan Notes

The men’s basketball team will play a 7:30 p.m. exhibition game tonight against the Melbourne Tigers, an Australian team the Fullerton coaching staff believes will be much more competitive than the Fellowship of Christian Athletes team the Titans beat, 80-69, Saturday night. Fullerton Coach Brad Holland hopes the Titans can make progress from their spotty performance Saturday night, when they turned the ball over 28 times, shot only 40% from the field and made only three of 18 three-pointers. “I know the players and staff were not real happy, but we didn’t have high expectations,” he said. “The players are struggling to learn a new system, and the team and coaches are still adjusting to each other. We all know we have an awful long ways to go.”