{"id":510347,"date":"2026-03-02T23:03:10","date_gmt":"2026-03-02T23:03:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/510347\/"},"modified":"2026-03-02T23:03:10","modified_gmt":"2026-03-02T23:03:10","slug":"former-cfl-defender-celestin-haba-signs-with-ufls-columbus-aviators","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/510347\/","title":{"rendered":"Former CFL defender Celestin Haba signs with UFL&#8217;s Columbus Aviators"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>            <a href=\"https:\/\/cdn.3downnation.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/RPS08874-1.jpg\" data-caption=\"Photo: Reuben Polansky\/3DownNation. All rights reserved.\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"696\" height=\"464\" class=\"entry-thumb td-modal-image\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/RPS08874-1-696x464.jpg\"   alt=\"\" title=\"Celestin Haba\"\/><\/a>Photo: Reuben Polansky\/3DownNation. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n<p>American defensive lineman Celestin Haba has signed with the Columbus Aviators of the United Football League.<\/p>\n<p>The six-foot-one, 250-pound defender spent two seasons with the Winnipeg Blue Bombers, recording 18 defensive tackles, five sacks, and two forced fumbles. He played 18 regular-season games during the 2023 and 2024 seasons and made six starts.<\/p>\n<p>The 26-year-old signed with the Toronto Argonauts as a free agent in 2025 and played three regular-season games, making three defensive tackles, one sack, and one forced fumble. He was released by the team in August.<\/p>\n<p>The native of Columbia, S.C. joined the practice roster with the B.C. Lions shortly after he was cut by the Argonauts, a stint that lasted seven weeks. He never dressed for a regular-season game with the Lions.<\/p>\n<p>Collegiately, Haba played at East Texas A&amp;M University, where he made 39 total tackles, 13 tackles for loss, 8.5 sacks, two pass knockdowns, two forced fumbles, two fumble recoveries, and one interception over 16 games.<\/p>\n<p>The Aviators are a new UFL team scheduled to play for the first time in 2026. The team will play out of the Historic Crew Stadium, which opened in 1999 and seats around 20,000.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Photo: Reuben Polansky\/3DownNation. All rights reserved. American defensive lineman Celestin Haba has signed with the Columbus Aviators of&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":510348,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[437],"tags":[166835,166836,100127,22069,202889,11137,22070,22936,49,48,7028,521,522,202890,520,16507,527,82,3302,137438,22073],"class_list":["post-510347","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cfl","tag-3down","tag-3downnation","tag-argonauts","tag-argos","tag-aviators","tag-b-c-lions","tag-blue-bombers","tag-bombers","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-canadian","tag-canadian-football-league","tag-canadianfootballleague","tag-celestin-haba","tag-cfl","tag-columbus","tag-football","tag-sports","tag-toronto","tag-ufl","tag-winnipeg"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/510347","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=510347"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/510347\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/510348"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=510347"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=510347"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=510347"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}