Missy Payne: Photo by Kathy Tran
When neighborhood resident Missy Payne returned from spending 40 days on “Survivor: San Juan del Sur,” some acquired instincts were hard to kick.
“I carried extra water bottles and snacks in my purse whenever I’d leave the house,” she says. “It made no sense. I could drive to any store to get food.”
For the most part, the reality TV show is not a bunch of smoke and mirrors. Payne says each contestant received a handful of rice a day, and that’s it. The already slim and fit cheer coach lost 23 pounds.
“They really don’t feed you. You really are starving.”
Along with her 20-year-old daughter, Baylor, Payne competed on the show’s 29th season, which aired last fall. She made it to the final round as second runner-up, the $1 million prize just out of reach. Payne has been off the island for several months now, but the life-changing experience put her on a new path — one that involves inspiring local kids to achieve their goals.
Aside from running her gym, Express Cheer, in Preston Hollow, Park Cities and Frisco, Payne is launching a nonprofit organization, Cheer 4 Your Life, which aims to help fund extracurricular activities for children who can’t afford them. The circumstances don’t have to be extreme; she says she wants the organization to be accessible to “normal” kids who might miss out on attending football camp or starting their Eagle Scout project because of financial reasons they can’t control.
“Adversity comes in all shapes and forms,” she says.
Payne experienced her own share of adversity long before she was dropped on an island in Central America with 18 strangers. She’s been married and divorced three times, and the drama that ensued on “Survivor” paled in comparison.
“I was prepared,” she says. “That was way harder than ‘Survivor’.”
To her athletes back home, Payne has become not just a cheer coach but also a life coach, especially after the show. However, during her toughest years, she says, it was the other way around.
“The first half of my career, the kids were my life coaches,” she says. “They grew me up.”
Payne draws from her life experiences to show young people how to make good decisions.
“I start with my own children. We talk about relationships and how you get to choose the people you want to be around.”
Payne has taught cheerleading at schools such as the Episcopal School of Dallas, Parish Episcopal and the Covenant School, but she says working at Hillcrest High School was one of her favorites.
“At Hillcrest, you get such a diversity of kids,” she says. “People have written off DISD, and that’s not fair.”
She lives in the Hillcrest attendance zone, and if her 14-year-old daughter, Abby, doesn’t get into Booker T. Washington High School, she’ll be going to Hillcrest. Payne admits, though, that had she not worked at the school, she, like most Preston Hollow-area residents, would not have considered it.
Payne studied theater and initially pursued a job as a drama teacher at Aspen High School. They asked if she would settle for the cheer coach position until the drama slot opened up.
“Begrudgingly, I took the job,” she says. “I went to cheer camp and got down on the ground with the girls and learned how to do it. That was 1990, and I never stopped.”
She opened her first gym, Park Cities Spirit, in 1998, taking serious athletes to competitions that far exceed the elementary stomp-stomp clap routine.
Cheer 4 Your Life is still in its early stages, but Payne already is planning the first annual fundraiser in September. The theme is “It’s a Jungle Out There.” She’s inviting her “Survivor” castmates and will have kids participate by performing and sharing their stories.
Payne can add writing to her résumé, too. She hopes to publish a book about her experience on “Survivor.”
Learn more about Missy Payne and Cheer 4 Your Life at www.c4yl.com.
