Danny Everett

Danny Everett is the unassuming soul chef of the Ojai Valley, whose catering company SoulFête! artfully combines comfort food classics with the soulful flavors of the world. But although he’s well known and beloved in Ojai for his culinary prowess and tireless work within the local community, I spoke to him about his former life as a world-class athlete.

Photo by Emma Larkan

For most professional athletes competing in the Olympic Games is a lifelong dream. The opportunity to represent their country alongside the best sportsmen and women in the world is a distinction achieved only by few through years and years of tireless training and ruthless ambition. But for Danny Everett it was a slightly different story. “I only started running in the 10th grade because I didn’t want to go high school without doing something,” he explains. “I had some ability and did well in our league but I wasn’t competitive enough to really push myself. After one season, I felt I’d done well enough and actually quit the track and field team and joined a Shakespeare class instead.” 

Danny is an engagingly animated storyteller. With an infectious laugh, kind eyes and a knack for delivering punch lines, I found myself on the edge of my seat throughout our almost three-hour long interview. From his childhood in rural Texas, which imprinted a deep sense of community in him, to the culture shock of moving to South Central LA at the age of seven, and his initially reluctant yet unbelievable career as an athlete, his story had me laugh, gasp and cheer in equal measure. For it is a story of unexpected twists and turns, ups and downs and above all fierce determination. 

RUNNING AWAY

It all started when Danny was in his senior year at Fairfax High School and met an Army recruiter at his school counsellor’s office. Lured by the promise of opportunities he felt were otherwise unavailable to him – nobody in his family had been to college – Danny agreed to attend a military hiring day. However, the reality of the regimented discipline of the Army quickly became apparent when the recruitment day turned into a nightmare for Danny. Told to remove his clothes and take a complete physical exam before being what he felt was intimidated into signing up, Danny found himself unwillingly enlisted as an Army cook. “All the things I was interested in like flying a plane and becoming a pilot were unavailable and the only option left was to become a cook,” he recalls. But even though he was passionate about food, having been enamoured with his grandmother’s cooking since childhood, this recipe did not work. “I was so young and this guy was so forceful that I really felt like I had no other choice but to sign up. But I knew I didn’t want to do this.” 

Desperately looking for a way out, Danny learned that a university scholarship would be his only chance of being released. And so he started to run. Fast. “Up until that point I had never run anything even close to getting a scholarship but when my high school coach explained to me what it would take, I started to really push myself.” He improved his 400m running time from 53 to 49 seconds within a week, took the last available spot at the Arcadia Invitational – the biggest high school track and field competition in California – and stunned onlookers by not just beating the defending state champion but winning the race with a new national best and meet record of 46.79 seconds. 

Photo by Emma Larkan

OVERNIGHT SUCCESS

Overnight Danny’s fortunes changed. Offers of full scholarships from universities around the country came flooding in presenting Danny not just with his much needed ticket out of the Army but also giving him the choice of where to go to college. “That race really changed my life,” he admits. Although he had countless options on the table, there was only one school for Danny and that was UCLA. “With all the other schools it felt like I was the missing link to their success. But with UCLA it felt like it was also about my personal success. From the start they told me I would get the support I needed to graduate and there was as much focus on me getting my degree as there was on being an athlete.” 

Danny began his college career in 1985, studying a BA in History and running for the UCLA Track & Field team. As a Bruin he won three national titles, including the 400m and 1600m relay as well as two Pac-10 titles in the same categories. Then in 1988, UCLA coach John Smith encouraged Danny and his teammate, Steve Lewis, to take part in the Olympic trials in Indianapolis, Indiana. “It was the end of a busy college season and we went there purely for the experience,” Danny remembers. “There was absolutely no expectation that we would actually qualify.” But qualify they did, with both Danny and Lewis taking second and third place respectively after Ohio runner Butch Reynolds, who placed first. 

Danny competed as an American Track & Field athlete, specializing in the 400 meters. During his career, Danny earned two Olympic medals, set seven world records, and was ranked number three in the world. Danny still ranks as the 14th fastest individual 400m runner of all-time.

THE OLYMPIC GAMES

And so the UCLA friends competed at the 1988 Summer Olympic Games in Seoul, Korea, where the US 400m runners swept the podium, with Lewis winning gold, Reynolds taking silver and Danny gaining bronze. “I didn’t run the best strategic race,” Danny recalls. “I made an error and kicked to soon so I came in third. But three Americans swept the medals and that was a real source of pride. Of course, I was disappointed for myself but I was genuinely happy for my friend Steve, who won the gold. We were always very supportive of each other and have remained close friends to this day.” 

The US runners went on to win the gold medal in the 1600m relay race, in which Danny got his pay back. “I wanted to run first to get the most camera time,” he jokes. He broke the world record for the fastest first leg ever run in a 4x400m race, which he still holds today more than three decades later. “I loved running the relay because that is the only time you combine your forces and really run as a team,” he says.

INJURY AND RETIREMENT

While Danny also won gold, silver and bronze medals between the World Championships in Athletics in Rome, Italy, in 1987 as well as in Tokyo, Japan, in 1991, his Olympic success of Seoul was sadly not to be repeated. Despite an on-going Achilles' tendon injury, Danny qualified again for the US Olympic team in 1992. He ran the fastest qualifying time in US history at 43.81 seconds, setting him up on what seemed a certain path toward gold in Barcelona. But his luck ran out at the Games, when his Achilles' tendon flared up again and forced him to withdraw from the race. “I didn’t cry but I was very sad,” Danny confesses. “I was in the best shape of my life and I had felt sure that this was my time to win the individual gold.” Instead he watched the final from his bedroom back in California. “It was very surreal,” he says. After Barcelona, Danny underwent a series of surgeries on his Achilles' tendon and continued to run but when he eventually fell into the hands of a surgeon who performed an experimental procedure that caused more harm than good, he made the difficult decision to retire from his track and field career.

Photo by Emma Larkan

BECOMING A CHEF AND COMING TO OJAI

But next to running, Danny had always had another passion: cooking. Inspired by his Texan grandmother’s southern, soulful flair and natural ability in the kitchen, he attended the Los Angeles Culinary Institute. Here he picked up classic French cooking techniques, worked as a pastry chef at the Ritz-Carlton hotel, and even appeared on Good Morning America during a segment on holiday baking. Yet his real culinary talent lay in his ability to make his cooking his own. He soon developed a unique skill of combining his classical training with his southern roots, creating technically astute, artful dishes that reflect both the soulful flavors of his family heritage as well as the international cuisines he was able to experience during his global travels as an international athlete. “My dishes always involve something smoky, spicy and sweet,” he says. 

In the late 1990s Danny and his wife Tiarzha Taylor moved to Upper Ojai, where the couple hosted and catered intimate weddings and events. Over the years, the two have become integral parts of the local community, serving it tirelessly to make the Ojai Valley a better place to live for everyone. But that’s another story.  

Today, Danny and Tiarzha continue to live on their land in Upper Ojai, together with their three children Karys, Cole and Ava as well as the family’s dog, pigs, turkeys, ducks and chickens. The goal, Danny says, is self-sustainability. It may be a quiet life, far away from the hustle and bustle of his once dazzling international athletic career, but it’s a happy life and as with anything Danny does, he gives it his all.