Rugby Star Eyes Olympics After Life-Saving Colon Removal

When Cass Bargell stepped onto the field at the 2025 Women's Rugby World Cup wearing a USA jersey, she carried something most elite athletes never have to think about: an ostomy bag collecting waste from where her colon used to be.

The Harvard rugby star was 21 when severe ulcerative colitis nearly ended everything. She couldn't walk to class without exhausting pain, lost dangerous amounts of weight, and woke up every night drenched in sweat.

"I knew I was sick but how sick could I be?" Bargell remembered thinking. "I was still training for rugby."

In November 2021, emergency surgery removed her colon and created a stoma in her abdomen. A few months later, she was back on the rugby pitch, but her body wasn't done fighting. She needed another abdominal surgery in June 2022, tore her ACL that October, then underwent two more emergency surgeries in November.

Four major abdominal surgeries and an ACL tear in one year would end most athletic careers. Bargell had other plans.

"I vividly remember the first tackle I ever made when I had a bag and how scary that was," she said. "But I don't think I ever thought that I wouldn't play again."

Why This Inspires

After nearly a year away from rugby, USA Rugby invited Bargell to a national team camp in January 2024. She performed so well that she debuted for the senior national team just two months later in March.

Her coach, Emilie Bydwell, who has worked with Bargell for over a decade, said the defining traits of great rugby players are work ethic and perseverance through adversity. "She's an absolute workhorse," Bydwell said. "Her ability to contribute on both sides of the ball and maintain tempo is what allows her to be successful."

Former USA head coach Sione Fukofuka saw Bargell's ostomy differently than she expected. "He didn't see it as something that took away from me," she said. "He saw it as something that added to who I was as a person."

Bargell grew up playing rugby in Silverthorne, Colorado, starting at age 13. She won a national championship at Harvard and captained the team as a senior, always dreaming of wearing the USA jersey.

Now she's setting her sights on the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics. "Every time I get to train with these athletes and play, it's a reminder of how much I love playing and how grateful I am for my body and the ability to do it," she said.