Nov. 8--Nearly a decade ago, Jeff Hardy ranked among the hippest of the new breed of wrestlers and showmen of the World Wrestling Federation.

As part of the tag-team duo The Hardy Boyz with his brother, Hardy basked in national attention among wrestling fans for his high-risk stunts.

With his brother, Matt, Hardy won the world tag-team championship half a dozen times. On his own, he held the world championship belt three times in World Wrestling Entertainment, the organization formerly known as the WWF.

Hardy, 32, found himself in the spotlight earlier this year for less flattering reasons.

He was arrested Sept. 11 after Moore County sheriff's deputies searched his Cameron home and found prescription pills and anabolic steroids.

Officers seized 262 Vicodin prescription pills, 180 Soma prescription pills, 555 milliliters of anabolic steroids, a residual amount of powder cocaine and drug paraphernalia, according to the Sheriff's Office. The estimated street value of the drugs: $2,500.

He was charged with an extensive list of drug-related crimes, including trafficking in opium and prescription pills and possession of anabolic steroids.

Later that day, an online post on Hardy's Twitter account said, "A lot of exaggerations are out there today, don't believe everything you read 4 it is not true, I am at home and fine-thanks for your concern."

Hardy could not be reached for comment for this story. A "No Trespassing" sign is posted on his wooded property.

"He won't talk. He ain't talking to nobody," said his father, Gilbert Hardy, who also lives in Cameron. "He doesn't even want to talk to me."

If convicted of the opium trafficking charge alone, Hardy could face nearly six years in prison, at a minimum, said Warren McSweeney, a Moore County prosecutor. "It could be substantially more," he added.

A probable cause hearing has been continued to Dec. 2.

Greg Price, who runs the National Wrestling Alliance Legends Fanfest each August in Charlotte, said he doesn't believe Hardy's career will be jeopardized even if he's found guilty of drug charges. Price often culls talent from World Wrestling Entertainment, and he said Hardy has wrestled for him in the past.

Hardy's career, he surmised, would only be slowed.

"The worst-case scenario -- jail time," Price said. "Honestly, in the wrestling business, all that would do is delay his career. No wrestling promoter out there today is not going to use him because of that. I think again, that comes back to society and prescription pill use. A lot of people don't look at that as being illegal."

This isn't the first time Hardy, who is no longer under contract with the WWE, has been linked to drugs. The WWE twice suspended him for violating its drug program.

A wrestling promoter who did not want to be identified said World Wrestling Entertainment has been aware of issues with Hardy for a long time.

"And it's that," he said, "that concerns me."

Cameron, with a population of about 300, is probably best known for its twice-a-year antiques fair. And it is home to Jeff and Matt Hardy.

When the brothers are not on the road or being showcased on the professional wrestling circuit, they return to their roots in the Sandhills.

The Hardys were brought up on a tobacco farm on the outskirts of Cameron, some 30 miles northwest of Fayetteville.

"They're real proud of the Hardy boys," said Lisa Daniels, a cook at the Cameron Boys Camp, which operates near the Hardys' homes off Boys Camp Road.

A lot of people in the community feel bad about Jeff's drug arrest, she said. "He seems to be a nice guy," she said, "and they seem to be disappointed, hoping it's not so."

Nat Miller has known the Hardy family -- the two brothers and their father, Gilbert -- about 15 years. Before Matt and Jeff turned pro, he would sometimes sponsor them at wrestling events.

Miller owns Miller's Family Restaurant, a popular country-cooking establishment in the nearby community of Vass. Jeff Hardy, he said, might drop by to eat once or twice every couple of weeks.

Like some others in the area, he doesn't believe Hardy is guilty.

"I just can't picture Jeff into that," he said. "He's got a professional career. That's an awful lot to give up for something like that -- if it's true."

M.D. Guthrie was Hardy's high school football coach.

"I hate to see him throw his career away," he said. "I know his family, and I know it's hard on them. I hate it for them -- that they have to go through this."

Jeff Hardy's personal issues have drawn attention before.

On March 11, 2008, the WWE suspended him for 60 days for a second violation of the company's substance abuse and drug testing policy. At the time, WWE spokesman Gary Davis would not say what drugs were involved.

Less than a week later, Hardy's home in Cameron was destroyed in a fire. He was not home at the time.

Six months later, he was involved in an incident at the Nashville, Tenn., airport, according to the Tennessean.com. The online news service said Hardy was not allowed to board a Southwest Airlines flight to North Carolina after an airline employee reported he appeared to be intoxicated. He was not arrested.

"I think Jeff cooperated with them. We investigated into it," WWE spokesman Robert Zimmerman said last month.

Zimmerman said he could not discuss specifics of Hardy's two suspensions while he was wrestling for the WWE because of privacy issues. The only thing the organization will release is that a wrestler has violated the drug program and the number of strikes he has against him.

A third offense would result in a lifetime suspension from the WWE, Zimmerman said.

Guthrie, Hardy's prep coach, has spent the past decade as principal of Wallace-Rose Hill High School in Duplin County. In the early 1990s, he was running the football program at Union Pines High School in Cameron.

"I'm sorry this happened," he said. "When I was at Union Pines, we had them come to speak to our classes. The kids actually enjoyed that. That's (the drug arrest) out of his nature from when I knew him. It doesn't add up to me."

The big break for the Hardy boys came in May 1998, when they signed with the World Wrestling Federation only four years after beginning on the amateur circuit.

Jeff Hardy, a linebacker on the Union Pines football team, couldn't play his senior year because he got involved in wrestling, Guthrie said.

He remembers when the brothers set up a trampoline in their backyard to videotape themselves wrestling. They would bring the footage to school to show everyone what they had done.

Jeff would jump off the roof of his house onto the trampoline as a member of the brothers' fantasy Teenage Wrestling Federation. He took a ramp he had built for his motor-cross bike and painted it to resemble a stage entrance for their backyard "wrestling ring."

"As far as Jeff, he comes from a good family," Guthrie said. "His mother died when he was young. His dad is a good man. They were no troublemakers. I thought they had a very positive attitude and were good students. Matt, his brother, actually had an academic scholarship for engineering to UNC-Charlotte but turned it down to wrestle.

"That was probably a good thing," he added with a laugh, "because they made a lot more money wrestling."

C.W. Anderson, a 38-year-old independent wrestler who lives outside Raleigh, started out in the business with Matt and Jeff in the 1990s. They did shows together in Raleigh and across the state.

"We were guys that just loved to wrestle," he said.

The Hardy brothers, from what he recalls, were "just straight as an arrow." If Jeff had to do a wrestling promo with cursing in the script, Anderson said, he would use another word that sounded similar.

"From what you see on TV now, he's the exact opposite," he said. "Every time I saw him, he was the same old Jeff."

Under the glare of the national spotlight, the brothers ratcheted up their performance. They traded in clean-cut looks for multicolor hair and fitted T-shirts, and they replaced traditional hand-to-hand wrestling moves with 20-foot ladders and high-impact maneuvers.

Their careers soared, and the Hardy Boyz acquired main-event status.

Jeff Hardy forged ahead on what would be an up-and-down career, splitting on and off with his brother and playing the villain for a time.

It appears he last wrestled at the Crown Coliseum in Fayetteville in late 2006, where he defended his championship belt in a ladder match. That style of extreme wrestling, which is Hardy's forte, requires stamina and athletic ability and the strength to endure punishment in the ring.

Last summer, Hardy won the WWE's world heavyweight championship belt, only to lose it in August to wrestler C.M. Punk.

Hardy left the WWE several months ago.

The wear and tear of life in the ring has produced a spate of injuries. He has suffered a neck injury and a couple of herniated discs in his lower back. And he has experienced problems with restless legs syndrome, according to the wrestling Web sites Wrestle View and Wrestle News and Gossip.

"It's still exciting, but wrestling takes a toll on you physically," he said in a Dec. 29, 2006, interview with The Fayetteville Observer. "I mean, I've always had an athletic style, but it can be brutal, and you just have to shake off the pain."

Price, the man behind the NWA Wrestling Legends Fanfest, said pro wrestlers have to deal with the pain from the constant grind of performance after performance. He said WWE wrestlers travel six or seven days a week, pushing their bodies almost every night. They wake up every morning with a rash of aches and pains.

"I'm afraid it breeds abuse just by the nature of having to perform at the top level night after night," Price said. "Some folks just need a couple of Vicodins to knock the pain off for the next match."

Carlyle's Country Store stands no more than two miles from the Hardys' rural homestead.

Inside, a collection of pictures of Jeff and Matt hang on the wall by the cash register.

They include photos of the Hardy Boyz along with their former ring partner, Lita. There's one of the Hardys posing with their father, Gilbert, a retired mail carrier and farmer. Also in the mix is a picture of the yellow pickup the boys bought and gave to their dad.

"Now, he's proud of them boys. And I would be, too," said Freddie Carlyle, the 70-year-old local who owns the store with his wife.

"Just good old boys," he said.

Carlyle didn't want to talk about Jeff's arrest. He maintains a loyalty to the family. Carlyle and the Hardy patriarch have been friends nearly all their lives, and the senior Hardy is known to drop by the store nearly every other day.

There's one other picture, one autographed by the wrestling stars. In it, a fresh-faced Jeff and Matt are hanging off a Cameron city limits sign.

Carlyle, wearing overalls and an N.C. State ball cap, squinted at the picture and remarked, "They done good. I declare they have."

But one of them -- the youngest boy, Jeff -- may be facing hard time and the disruption of an upper-tier wrestling career.

"Jeff has the talent," Price said. "Whenever he has resolved his issue, there will be a place for him to go back to work, if he chooses to do that. I don't think this will do anything at all to hurt his career."

Staff writer Michael Futch can be reached at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it or 486-3529.

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