Players and coaches from the 1980 state champs have been invited to attend Friday's game where they will be introduced in a special ceremony at 7 p.m.
Head football coach Virgil Terry was an assistant coach for the Diamonds in 1980 and is pleased to have the former players coming back to be honored. He said there are a lot of fond memories from that championship season.
"There are so many memories because that was the first state championship I was involved with. It was just such a relief to get that season over because we expected it and the community expected it," said Terry.
"We were a really good defensive football team, but offensively we broke all kinds of records. The biggest memory of those kids that I have is we had almost two totally seperate football teams. We had an offense and we had a defense. That doesn't happen very often in a school this size, but we had enough good players."
The 1980 team reeled off wins over Tahlequah, Wagoner, Roland, Stilwell, Fort Gibson, Checotah, Eufaula, Muldrow, Spiro and Poteau to post Sallisaw's first undefeated regular season since 1968. The Diamonds won the District 2A-7 title and their closest game was a 14-9 win over Stilwell in Week 4.
The Diamonds romped past Antlers 32-7 in the first round of the playoffs and defeated Cushing 25-16 the next week to set up a rematch with Stilwell in the semifinals. This one wasn't as close as the first meeting, and the Diamonds romped to a 44-15 victory at Stilwell.
That advanced Sallisaw to the Class 2A state championship game against Lindsey, coached by Joe Tunnell, who is now the winningest coach in Oklahoma high school football history. The title game was played Dec. 5 at Union Stadium in Tulsa and Sallisaw brought home its first gold ball with a 33-22 triumph.
It's somewhat fitting that the 1980 champions are being honored this season, because Terry said the current team shares some of the same characteristics.
"They remind me so much of these kids we have now, because of their work ethic. Since that bunch in 1980, I've never had anybody ask me to run extra until this year," said Terry.
"I'm looking forward to it and I think it will be a really good experience. It's been so long ago that we don't talk about it much to these kids now. Football has changed, but not the way it's played. I see a lot of similarities between those kids and these kids, with the exception of the number of kids that play both offense and defense."
