Ann Arbor, MICH

The University of Michigan community was rocked Friday morning by news that recently dismissed Wolverine combo-guard Laval Lucas-Perry was a member of the Russian spy ring recently uncovered by an FBI sting.

“We began thinking something was amiss when we realized that Laval consistently missed practice, team meetings, and games,” commented Coach John Beilein. “It just didn’t seem like basketball was his primary concern.”

Accounts, however, very on Lucas-Perry’s attendence record.

“Laval was alwaysthere,” commented team manager Scott Rosen, “Coach Beilein just never realized it. It was like Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, except Laval was sitting in the back of the room, with his chin resting on his hand.”

Rosen, however, agrees that Lucas-Perry wasn’t fully there.

“I mean, he was always there, but it seemed like his mind was somewhere else. Like he wasn’t really truly present.”

The FBI contends that Lucas-Perry’s mind was indeed somewhere else – on transmitting items national importance to the Russian government. Perry, they contend, was trained by the Soviet government to blend seamlessly into American society and infiltrate it’s most prestigious institutions.

“These spies were trained for years to fly under the radar – to not be noticed,” commented Special Agent Michael Jonathan Spencer. “They knew that if they called attention to themselves or made themselves conspicuous in any way, it could attract the attention of law enforcement.”

Lucas-Perry’s avoidance of the spotlight, however, is eventually what made him conspicuous.

“It was just so strange to watch him run up and down the court for 30+ games a season and not really do anything,” noted Detroit News Michigan beat reporter Angelique Chengelis. “He played like a man with something to hide, but then you’d just sort of forget about him. I always meant to ask him why he played the way he did, but then realized I couldn’t run an article about a guy who took two shots a game.”

According to Spencer, this tendency to fade to the background did not go unnoticed.

“Finally, we just began wondering how likely it was that a college basketball player could play 25 minutes a game and not accrue any statistics – positively or negatively. Was he a good shooter? A bad shooter? A good ball-handler? Turnover-prone? A good or bad defender? He wasn’t any of these, he was just in the background, observing. Something was up. Either this guy was hiding an array of basketball skills, or he had never played before in his life and was just hoping the ball wouldn’t come to him.”

The question remains, however: what did Perry learn? What secrets did Perry and his spy ring transmit back to Russia?

“Nothing, really,” admits Agent Spencer. “Other agents sent back minutes from their PTA meetings, the price of gold. Others just used their payments from Russian to pay for grad school. Maybe Perry just wanted really good seats?”

Others are not so sure.

“Sure, it appeared that he didn’t do anything at all to help the Russians,” concedes Coach Beilein, “but it appeared like he wasn’t doing anything on the court either. Who knows what the real truth is?”