Bouncing Back

Aulcie Perry was never just another transplanted U.S. hoopster. Now, after an unfortunate decade away, he's come home.

IN EARLY JANUARY, AFTER A 10-year absence and with more than a little help from some of his friends, Aulcie Perry came home to Israel.

When he'd traveled to the United States at the end of the 1987 basketball season, he hadn't expected to be away so long. Then Perry, at the twilight of a career with Maccabi Tel Aviv that included Euro-pean Champions Cup titles in 1977 and 1981 and starring appearances on Israel's national team, had planned "an extended vacation. I had been playing ball all my life, from the age of 5. I expected to come back, when something happened."

"Something" was an arrest on drug-related charges, and a 10-year sentence in U.S.

Federal prison. Perry served five years, then a parole violation - which he says was for leaving the area he was restricted to under the terms of his release - put him back in for two years more.

Through all those years, Perry dreamed of returning to Israel. Because, unlike all those other foreign basketball players who converted to Judaism and became naturalized Israelis (a common practice in the 1980s, to get around the European basketball association rule limiting each club to two foreign players), Perry was different. When their careers are over, the hired guns usually reswitch allegiances and domiciles back to the United States, but Perry "had an apartment, everything here. If I had been gone for only three or four months,...