This weekend, as the Philadelphia Waterdogs take the field in Salt Lake City to face the Carolina Chaos, rookie long-stick midfielder Ben Wayer will be playing a home game of sorts, just not in the usual sense.
For Wayer, Utah isn’t just a stop on the Premier Lacrosse League schedule. It’s where everything changed.
Just three years ago, Wayer’s life had unraveled. A promising but struggling player at the University of Virginia, he was quietly battling substance abuse. By late 2022, he had reached a breaking point…