Her Dad's Death Inspired Her to Become a Dallas Cowboys Cheerleader. Now She Works 3 Jobs to Live Out Her Dream (Exclusive)

Growing up in Texas, Marissa Phillips shared a dream with almost every other young girl around her: she wanted to be a Dallas Cowboys Cheerleader. She watched the spirited, starry-costumed squad on their CMT reality show. She danced her way through childhood, starting at just 2 years old. Phillips followed her passion into competitive studios and onto her high school drill team, but she hardly believed she could take her talents all the way to the NFL.

"It was always one of those things that was a goal in the back of my head," Phillips tells PEOPLE exclusively. "I honestly really never thought I would make the team or that a dream that big could come true."

Today, Phillips is living the life she always hoped to have, and it's even bigger than she could've ever guessed. At age 24, she's currently in her third season cheering for the Cowboys. She appeared in Netflix's hit docuseries America’s Sweethearts: Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders, which is set to return for a season 2.

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Looking back, Phillips says she "got really lucky" nabbing one of the 36 spots when she tried out in 2022. However, her lifelong dedication to dance and cheer tells a story less about luck and more about the discipline, ambition and heart famously needed to become a Cowboys Cheerleader.

She first caught a glimpse of what felt like an impossible future during her high school drill team days. The team often performed on a football field, and Phillips took the opportunity to get familiar with the turf from a dancer's perspective. And just like in the big leagues, the teen team rocked around in cowboy boots, preparing Phillips for even fancier footwork in the classic Southern style.

After high school, she joined the dance team at Texas A&M University. On the NCAA Division I stage, she continued enjoying the perks of being part of a close-knit team, like the all-out performances, strong friendships and sense of community. But in her later collegiate years, Phillips felt the need to grapple with a possible pivot in her path.

"I was getting to that point where I was trying to figure out what I was going to do with my life," she reflects. Just as her head was turning away from any future on the NFL field, heartbreak urged her to reassess.

In 2021, Phillips' dad died from Lewy body dementia. His death "shifted a big mindset in me," she tells PEOPLE. "I was like, 'You know what? I'm going to go for my dreams, life is short.'"

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She decided to "take the leap" and try out for the Dallas Cowboys Cheerleading team. "My dreams came true," says Phillips, who signed on as a rookie just a few months after graduating from Texas A&M in 2022.

Between busy game days, promotional obligations, travel demands and strict rehearsal schedules, it's hard to overstate how much work goes into being one of "America's Sweethearts." During the season, Phillips spends most of her nights running through routines at the Cowboys' home base stadium in Arlington.

Practice usually ends around 9:30 p.m., though Phillips says longer nights will go as late as 10 p.m. "Then I'll trek it on back home, and I get home around 11 or 11:30," she explains, noting that her "sweet fiancé" Braden Leschber always has food cooked and ready for her when she gets back.

Despite the exhaustion that may come with the gig, Phillips doesn't spend her day simply waiting to make the 45-minute commute to AT&T Stadium for practice. She doesn't start the morning as an NFL cheerleader; at 9 a.m., Phillips clocks into her full-time job at an accounting firm. While she works eight hours at an office in her "full corporate day job outfit," her practice-ready person is parked outside.

"I'll pack all of my stuff for practice with me in the car. So I'm packing breakfast, I'm packing lunch, I'm packing dinner and then I have all my practice clothes with me," she shares. She spends her break answering personal emails, running errands and posting on social media, where she has over 200,000 followers between TikTok and Instagram.

She also uses the time to work on her third job. Phillips and her sister, Micaela, co-run their online fashion brand, Joey Lynn Boutique, which they launched in 2023. Phillips says they originally started the business to "raise some extra funds" and spread awareness about Lewy body dementia.

Related: Where Are the America’s Sweethearts Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders Now — And Who Made the 2024 Team?

"We try to do a lot of fundraisers with the Alzheimer's Association and take donations through social media and any sales that we had from the boutique," she says. "It's been going good but we're just trying to slowly grow over time."

As daunting as her day-to-day may seem, Phillips says she's not the only Cowboys cheerleader with a lot going on off the field. Several of her fellow squad members are full-time employees elsewhere, too.

"We're all very determined and we're all very aspirational ... so we all load ourselves up a lot with work," says Phillips. "You'll see a lot of us that work corporate jobs but then also have side businesses like I do with the boutique."

She continues, "They're busy days and they're hard and they're long, but I'm living the dream that I always hoped for so it's always fun doing what I do."

In fact, her teammates play a huge part in Phillips' personal discipline. She attributes a large part of her motivation to watching her teammates experience such a similar lifestyle to her own.

Related: 10 Rules Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders Have to Follow (Even Before They Make the Team!)

"It takes a lot to become a Dallas Cowboys cheerleader. Surrounding myself with women that I look up to — that have these incredible careers and these incredible passions and this drive — it's really inspirational," she tells PEOPLE. "I think that's one thing that pushes me forward and pushes me to chase my dreams as well."

Phillips admits that she was somewhat anxious about making friends with the squad before her rookie year. She wasn't sure if the bond would come close to the type of community she felt while dancing at Texas A&M.

"When you're joining a team of women, you can obviously be nervous at first of just not knowing how the vibe is going to be," she says. "You're throwing yourself into a room of beautiful women who are from all different walks of life, all very successful."

Fortunately, she was "blown away" to meet the girls and see the kind of bond awaiting her as a Dallas Cowboys Cheerleader. "Everyone is so kind to one another," she continues.

Phillips says it's actually "quite the opposite" of her college experience, but not for negative reasons. She's been delighted by the difference in age and background between the team members.

Related: How Much Do Dallas Cowboy Cheerleaders Make? A Breakdown of Salaries Mentioned in America's Sweethearts

"You're not just how you are in college where you have girls that are all your age and you're going through the exact same thing at the exact same time," she says. They also all hail from different parts of the world and bring varying perspectives and life experiences to the table.

"One of my friends is 32, and then one of my friends is 27 and she's been married for five years. I have a friend who just turned 21, so she's the little baby of the group," Phillips shares. "We all get to mentor each other in different ways."

During the season, the women are sorted into four groups of nine and separated into each corner of the football field. Though that system was primarily created to space them out around the NFL action, Phillips says it results in special connections as the season goes on.

"You don't really see too much of the other groups just because you're across the football field from them, so you get really close to the girls [in your group]. You see them every day at practice. You dance by them on the sidelines," she explains.

Within the groups, she says the teammates will make an effort to do "special little things" for each other throughout the season. "We give each other little gifts each game day," adds Phillips. "It can be anything from a candle or a sweatshirt that someone got customized. They're super sweet and just sentimental gifts just to spoil each other and lift each other up."

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Some of their tokens of appreciation are a bit more elevated these days, which Phillips attributes to social media success and "the growth" the cheerleaders saw after the Netflix series. To celebrate the holiday season this year, Phillips partnered with Dyson to give all 36 of her friends their own Dyson Airwraps, the coveted hair styling tools that retail at $600.

She maintains that that specific gift was a "rarity" and says all of the credit for the surprise is owed to the Dyson brand — "I was just playing one of Santa's elves," she insists. Regardless, she's happy to share the wealth now that more eyes are on her as a social media personality, as is the case with some of her fellow cheerleaders.

"We definitely are spoiled a little bit more than we used to be and so I think we all try to help each other out in that way," says Phillips. "Like I said, I work a few jobs and I know a lot of other girls on the team do too, so it's something like, 'You know what? My friends deserve to have a little special treat sometimes.'"

While the team supports each other in their varying career pursuits and responsibilities beyond the field, Phillips is also glad to have some understanding from those at her day job. Her NFL schedule does occasionally bump up against her corporate work, like when the Cowboys play a rare weekday game. This year, the team had two Monday games that pulled the spirited dance star away from her desk.

"I did have to take off work from my day job for those two games, but they were both 7 [p.m.] games, so it's flexible," she says. Still, she doesn't fully halt her grind, even on game day: "We have to be there around 1 [p.m.], so that is always helpful ... I could get in a few hours of work in the morning just on my laptop at home."

Related: Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders Star Armani Latimer Dances Without Wig for First Time Since Revealing Her Alopecia on Show

It helps that she was already cheering for the NFL when she started in accounting, so her bosses expected her schedule to "be a little hectic during the football season," she adds. "But good thing is the tax season is in the spring so they were like, 'Your busy season is not our busy season, so it works great.'"

Things slow down a bit during the NFL's off-season, but the squad does keep up some relatively light training, meaning that the cheerleaders can maintain their fitness routines and their close bond as a group.

"We'll have practice every Tuesday, and that's our training night where they'll bring in outside dance choreographers and different teachers that will help cross-train us in different styles," she says of the post-Super Bowl schedule. "So, that's really fun and we get to see each other and get a good workout in every week."

It's crucial that the women are ready to jump right back into their vigorous workout schedule when the season resumes. Phillips says they all continuously train on their own outside of the Tuesday off-season sessions.

Related: See Every Dallas Cowboys Cheerleader Uniform From the '60s to Now

"Girls will start getting in the gym again, start lifting weights, building back that muscle that you need to start the season, and taking different dance classes here and there to just keep your body moving," she tells PEOPLE. "You definitely don't want to get out of shape and then have to start all over."

The cheerleaders also see each other without working up a sweat. In fact, they often swap workout gear for formal wear to attend each other's biggest milestones.

"For the off-season, a huge part of what keeps us connected is a lot of girls on the team get married so we always have weddings," she says. They even have a tradition of performing their iconic "Thunderstruck" dance at each other's nuptials.

This June, Phillips is finally going to be the host of their beloved team reunions when she marries Leschber — and she's inviting the squad abroad! The longtime couple will be tying the knot in Tuscany as an homage to Phillips' family heritage.

Related: Inside America's Sweethearts: Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders Star Reece Weaver's Florida Wedding: All the Photos!

And to sweeten the deal, two other Cowboys cheerleaders are getting married in the summer as well: "Their weddings are the weekend before mine and then the weekend before that. So we have three weddings back-to-back," Phillips tells PEOPLE.

As the season comes to a close, she's getting even more excited to spend her summer celebrating and bringing the whole team together.

"I would add them all as bridesmaids if I could, because they're literally all my best friends," she says. "But they're all coming. Hopefully, we'll do our first Italian Thunderstruck performance."

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