posted Jul 28th, 2004 - The NSL News reported on July 13th that MASL team Cross Keys O2 Project had bad luck when the Center Inside of the team, Tom Petzold, broke his wrist, caused by a bad landing under his reserve. Petzold was in good shape, however, the season was over for him. O2 Project was looking for a replacement.

The MASL team decided after much discussion among the remaining teamates to extend coach Brian Johnson's role and use him as the team's player coach for the remainder of the 2004 season. Johnson is also a member of the new 4-way team DeLand Scape, together with Pete Allum, Michael Biederman, Rusty Lewis and Ray Dutch (video).

DeLand Scape competed at the May meet of the Florida Skydiving League in Zephyrhills and posted a 16.0 meet average after five rounds at the team's first appearance. DeLand Scape plans to attend two more FSL meets and qualify for the NSL Championship at SkyQuest 2004. Johnson will have to juggle his schedule to accommodate both teams' schedules.

However, since he was coaching O2 Project already, his new player coach position does not change the O2 Project schedule and will not interfere with DeLand Scape plans. The MASL team feels good about the decision. Karl and Cherie Schuch explain that the team will now compete in the Open Class at the USPA Nationals 2004:

"We will compete in Open class because we think that a player coach gives an unfair advantage to a team. Maybe next year we can try for a medal in USPA's Advanced Class."

O2 Project competed in the AA/Intermediate Class throughout the 2003 season and won the silver medals at the USPA Nationals in 2003. The original plan was to keep the same line-up (Barry Bichler, Tom Petzold, Cherie Schuch, Karl Schuch, Herman Tibbals) and compete for medals in the AAA/Advanced Class at the USPA Nationals 2004. These original plans changed when O2 Project decided to use Johnson as the team's player coach.

O2 Project also reports that the team received good response from qualified people after the July 13 article was posted in the NSL News. However, the team members saw the best solution with Johnson:

"Ultimately, we decided that it was so late in the season that we would do best with the man who trained us." Brian Johnson will be in DeLand Scape action next. The team plans to attend the FSL August meet in Lake Wales coming up in ten days.