Summer Pride gets underway for Black Diamonds
The Sallisaw Black Diamonds football team took the first step in preparation for the 2025 season from May 19-23 with its one week of spring practice and culminating with a two-day team camp on the final two days.
The Black Diamonds started taking the second step on Monday as the first of two Summer Pride sessions got underway.
“I think everybody is ready to go for this summer,” said Sallisaw football coach Brandon Tyler, who is beginning his third season at the helm. “We had good attendance (on Monday). We had good numbers. We had a good workout. It was a good first session. It’s something to build off of for the rest of summer. We’re looking forward to it.”
This session of Summer Pride, which is not only for the Black Diamonds football players but for all Black Diamonds and Lady Diamonds athletes, will end June 26. After a dead period, the second session will begin July 7 and end Aug. 1. High school football practice for the 2025 season, which will start at 7 p.m. Aug. 29 at Pryor, will begin Aug. 11.
For the first session, there are two main goals Tyler wants his players to achieve.
“Right now, we’re just trying to regain our strength and speed over the next seven weeks,” he said. “Our 7-on-7s started on Tuesday. That gave our quarterbacks and receivers a chance to go out and compete. I think we have a lot of things to work on this summer. The kids and the coaches are excited about it. We’re looking forward to it.”
The two-day team camp, which featured three Indians teams — Stilwell, Pocola and Sequoyah-Tahlequah — along with the Keys Cougars, showed areas where the Black Diamonds need to make improvements. Doing that is a high priority during the first session of Summer Pride.
“We’ll be able to work on a lot of it,” Tyler said. “It’s just running the right routes and catching and throwing the football. They’re all correctable things. We’ll have four weeks in June to get better throwing the football around.”
Tyler is anxious to see what improvements the Black Diamonds will make from when the first session of Summer Pride ends at the end of the month and the second session gets going July 7.
“We’re looking forward to seeing where we’ll be in a couple of weeks,” he said. “We’ll be through (with the first session) on June 26. Then the dead period starts, and we’ll come back in July for the second session.”
One obstacle during the first session of Summer Pride is that in June there also is summer league action in basketball and baseball, which is one or two other sports the Black Diamonds athletes play.
“June is a busy month,” Tyler said. “We have (summer) basketball and baseball (leagues) going on. We want our kids to do everything. We’ll try to get them here and work them out every morning. They have basketball (on Mondays and Tuesdays). It’s a busy time of the year for them. I hate it for the kids. I think they get cheated a little bit, but it is what it is.”
However, Tyler, the coaches and the players know what it takes to be able to compete at the best possible level.
“If we want to compete at a high level, there’s things we have to do every morning,” he said. “Our kids have responded well. They know what to do. It’s our third year now. They know what to expect. They came in and started the grind (Monday) morning.”
