"You're a wrestler, aren't you?" she asked.

    Long story, lady, but yes.

    DeHart, a senior at Radford High School, was 11-2 entering Wednesday's home match. He has qualified for the Group A wrestling tournament three straight years and seems a lock to do it again this season. One of three team captains, DeHart has his sights fixed on a state championship in the 160-pound weight class.

    He's a wrestler, and in his heart he's always been one. In reality, though, he was a wrestler, then wasn't, then was, then wasn't again, now is.

    And he's really not sure why.

    DeHart began wrestling with the Radford Recreation Department as a second-grader and immediately found success. He won every match during the regular season, then lost in the postseason tournament's championship match.

    Then he quit.

    He returned to wrestling as a fourth-grader, plowed through the regular-season field, then lost again in the championship match.

    So he quit again.

    "I don't really remember why I quit," DeHart said. "But my parents have told me that they thought I felt so bad that I couldn't get it done in the big match.

    "I only lost two matches in two years of wrestling, and I came away with the silver medal both times. And both times it was against guys that I'd beaten earlier in the year."

    Each winter, DeHart's parents would ask if he wanted to sign up for wrestling. He'd say no, and they'd never push him.

    "He hates to lose," said Dana DeHart, Drew's mother. "He would always finish a season. He just didn't want to go back the next year."

    He had plenty of activities to fall back on, however. Quitting wrestling just meant more time for basketball and roller hockey, DeHart's other two winter endeavors.

    Even if DeHart had never returned to the mat in high school, his schedule would have been plenty full. He's an honor roll student, a two-time All-Three Rivers District selection at defensive end and right guard, a third baseman on the Bobcats' baseball team, a middle distance runner on the indoor track team, vice president of his senior class, a certified Dixie Youth umpire, a rec basketball scorekeeper, a lifeguard and creator of a Radford football season highlight film.

    DeHart played basketball through eighth grade, starting at small forward on a squad with many of the same Radford players who are poised for a run at the Group A title this season. Wrestling coach and longtime friend Tony DeHart (a relative of Drew's father whom Drew calls "uncle") advised him not to push his luck on the hardwood, however.

    You're short, Tony DeHart said. You're slow. You're going to end up wrestling.

    Drew DeHart couldn't argue.

    "I just knew that I wasn't going to have a future in basketball," he said. "I needed to go to my true calling. I needed to go back to wrestling."

    He did, and in the words of his loving mother, "it was awful to watch." A rusty DeHart was pinned 13 times during his freshman season, but he rallied at the end of the year to win the district at 152 pounds.

    His sophomore year, DeHart wrestled at 171 and earned second in the district and third in the region. Last season, a gaunt team roster forced DeHart to bulk up and fill the 189 slot, where he was competitive but not dominant.

    This year, a slimmed-down DeHart has an edge over most of his opponents. His toughest competitor at the state level figures to be Ben Hurst of Region A, who beat DeHart in a close match earlier this season.

    "If pairings went my way, I could be in the state finals very easily," DeHart said. "But if pairings went against me, I would really have to fight and claw to get there."

    DeHart's other loss this year was to Blacksburg's Brice Zoecklein, one of the two guys who defeated him as an impressionable youngster.

    This was a different DeHart, though. No quitting this time.

    DeHart's hair is dyed a faded purple now, looking a little like premature gray. It's still lavender enough for strangers to peg him as an eccentric, hence a possible wrestler.

    He can answer their questions with confidence these days.