Toms River's Darian Barnes Takes On 'Worst Cooks' Contest

TOMS RIVER, NJ — A year ago, if you'd handed Darian Barnes some eggs and bacon and asked him to make breakfast, there's a good chance you would have been headed to IHOP.

"I never had to learn how to cook," said Barnes, the 1998 Toms River North graduate and Mariners' star running back who went on to win a Super Bowl with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.

With his wife, Becky, attending college, Barnes had to pitch in and help with making dinner for the family, including the couple's four daughters. It did not go well, he said.

That's when Becky and the girls hatched a plot to help him learn: They secretly submitted his name to be a contestant on the show "Worst Cooks In America." Their plot succeeded: Barnes is one of 14 contestants taking part in Season 20 of the show. The first episode airs Sunday at 9 p.m. on the Food Network.

"My wife and children watch it religiously," Barnes said Sunday evening by phone, after making dinner for the family. "I'd never seen the show before."

So when one of the producers called, he was taken aback.

"They heard me on the phone (with the producer) and when they realized what it was about, they were really excited," Barnes said with a laugh. "He's on the show!"

Barnes is one of 14 people competing for the $25,000 prize.

"It was the last thing I wanted to do with my life," Barnes said. "I said, 'I don't want to be on TV.' My wife was like, 'You're going.' "

It turned out to be an amazing experience.

Barnes had never learned how to cook because while he was playing football in college and the NFL — he retired in 2010 — there were people to do all the cooking for him: cafeteria meals in college, and plenty of restaurants to choose from before he and Becky got married.

But with Becky pursuing at teaching degree at Kean University — she wants to be a history teacher, Barnes said — he'd been pressed into service.

The show, which filmed in New York earlier this year, "was literally like a boot camp," Barnes said. "You have to learn a lot of information really fast and you have to perform. Football helped a lot in that respect."

He couldn't discuss the particulars of the show, but said he definitely learned a lot.

"I don't burn stuff anymore," he said with a laugh.

Barnes and his family live in Rahway — "Toms River is still home," he said — and he said he hadn't told many people about his appearance on the show. Becky and the girls, however, have been spreading the word as far as they could. He's is bracing for the teasing he figures he'll get when old friends find out he is on the show — especially after they watch it.

"I'm dreading it," he said. "I didn't watch an episode until I got back."

Barnes, who's now an elementary school teacher at the Montessori School in Short Hills, says he spends a lot of time reading and, before the coronavirus pandemic, was a dance dad.

"None of my daughters play sports," he said. But he sees parallels between the demands of a sport and the demands of dance. "My oldest danced five nights a week" before the shutdown.

The girls — ages 14, 11, 8 and 2 — also take acting and music lessons.

"It's kind of awesome in a way," he said. "I get to do other things with them."

And now that he's learned how to cook, he fixes meals on a regular basis.

"It was pretty much demanded of me," he said. And he knows he has made progress because his daughters want him to cook. "My daughters are very picky. They're tough critics."

Though he resisted it at first, Barnes said appearing on the show "was a great experience."

"My castmates were from all over the country. It was fun," he said. "I never thought I could learn how to cook."

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