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Wheeling park graduate David depto was always in search of something that challenged him as much physically as it did mentally. He found it in a relatively obscure sport known as Chessboxing.

By JIM ELLIOTT

W.Va. Sports Editor

Ohio County native David Depto grew up like a lot of other kids, playing football and basketball. He dabbled in wrestling, too, but it didn't take long for folks to realize Depto wasn't your average Little Leaguer.

When he wasn't working on his curveball, he was staring down Will Hunting in math competitions. No, this wasn't 2+2, it was they-say-you'll-need-this-later-in-life-but-it's-impossible-to-see-how mathematics. And it wasn't always within the school or even the county level.

This math counted.

What's more, at a time when most kids are still learning how to read and write, Depto was learning how to play chess as a first grader as part of the gifted program at Middle Creek Elementary.

''He has a strong background in academics,'' says David's father, Al Depto. ''I don't know how many trophies and plaques and certificates he has for that, but he always did well.''

David was seemingly always ahead of the game. The math came so easy, it became as much a detriment as it was a benefit. Sure schools like the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) were calling, but David always felt like people were quick to characterize him based solely on his academic prowess.

There was much more to him than that.

He thought he'd proved them wrong on the football field, the baseball diamond, the wrestling mat, or, at the very least, the canvas after he'd been introduced to boxing.

Al Depto still remembers taking his pre-teen son to his first boxing event, which happened to be the OV Toughman Championships at the Wheeling Civic Center.

Al was indifferent; David couldn't have been more interested if Muhammad Ali and Joe Frazier were out there.

''Enthralled. Glued. Hooked. Drugged,'' were the words David's dad used to describe his son's reactions that night. ''We sat there all evening, watched every bout.''

First chance he got after he'd turned 18, David, who read books about boxing and picked the brains of those in the know, entered the Toughman Contest. By the time he'd used all the amateur status he could on it, Depto was a twice known as ''The Toughest Man In The Ohio Valley.''

Boxing is a thinking man's game, not unlike ... chess.

It's rare that a feature on ESPN's SportsCenter is life-changing, but it was for David the day the Bristol crew introduced the world to chess boxing, a hybrid sport created in 2003 that combines boxing and chess in alternating rounds.

''It seemed like it was right up my alley,'' said David, who pursued it so strongly, today he's the No. 1-rated chessboxing contender in the United States.

''There is a lot of similarity,'' David said. ''Boxing is a chess match. You're always trying to set them up. The toughest part is coming out of the ring and trying to figure out what was the next move you were planning to make on the chess board. You always plan four or five moves ahead.''

Participants must be sanctioned boxers and rated chess players. Evander Holyfield just can't show up, push around a few pawns and rooks, and then knock someone out in 10 seconds when the bell rings.

David was supposed to participate in a world championship bout next month in Germany, but that's been postponed for the moment.

So was his reputation as all brains, no brawn. If they were going to call him an intellect, they were going to have to add ''with a killer right cross'' at the end.

David had always seen himself that way. This outlet just helped him show everyone else.

''He looked at (scholastic contests) as a sporting event,'' his dad says, an indication David had found parallels between academics and athletics from an early age. ''He looked at a math event as a sporting event and took it in that context. There was competition; there were guys that he looked at as competitors.''

That's why he passed on MIT and chose the University of Michigan after graduating from Wheeling Park High School in 1995. The way he saw it, the engineering program in Ann Arbor wasn't bad, either. (David's sister, Jill, didn't mind the idea that MIT had noticed her. She went there and graduated with a degree in chemical engineering).

It was there that David, the captain of Michigan's club boxing team, met a future Super Bowl-winning quarterback. Tom Brady walked in looking for a sparring partner one day as David was packing his gear. Depto took Brady up on his offer, first taking it easy on the QB. But Brady, who spent some time in a ring as a youth, asked Depto to ramp things up. He wanted a challenge, a workout. By the time they were finished, so was Brady's boxing career. He told Depto he was done. Forever.

After college, Depto moved to San Francisco in search of a place to take advantage of his degree in engineering. Even in a world where Tuberculosis still exists and Depto was part of a team that was developing better ways to combat it, he's never really been able to find a job that keeps him completely interested.

He's always in search of his next thrill. If he wasn't skydiving, he was spelunking, or scuba diving, and partially climbing Matterhorn, one of the highest peaks in the Alps.

''Everything is maxed,'' Al said. ''He has to go higher, faster, harder to get a lot.''

That's had its ups and downs.

''We called him Redline David,'' his dad recalled at one time when David leapt first, then looked later.

That was when David was 19 and turned a motorcycle into an accordion after smashing it into a pine tree. Bike went left, David went right, his backbone both directions.

Whether he'd ever walk again, much less, ride, jump, climb, or tackle, became a question. His parents were in Florida when they got that news.

''We got the call at 3 in the morning, drove through the night,'' Al said. ''As soon as we arrived, hospital personnel said we're getting some feeling in his feet.

''I can't express to you the up-and-down feelings. You can imagine your young, active, strong son that has his whole life in front of him with all these plans and going through that.''

He pulled through and packed more experience in the 12 years since than most people do in a lifetime.

Al never knows what the next call will entail. And he's having just as much fun anticipating it as David is doing it.

This was his thought as he watched live as his son participated in this unique sport halfway around globe.

''I think the adventures that I gave David when he was young, he's paying me back,'' Al said.