Hosts England hold few fears for the Harvard graduate who recovered from serious illness and surgery to play with a stoma and a bag
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few years ago, Cass Bargell gave a Ted Talk at Harvard, the same university where she studied integrative biology and played scrum-half, helping the Crimson to a national 15s title and earning nominations for US player of the year. Onstage, visibly nervous, she clutched a rugby ball as if for emotional support.
“I dropped the ball,” she says, laughing. “They edited it out.”
Bargell didn’t drop the ball with her talk, which offered a compelling account of her traumatic experience with ulcerative colitis and her extraordinary recovery.
