Staten Island, NY – Defensive tackle
Charbel Dabire, a three-year fixture up front for the Wagner College football team and 2018 team captain, was drafted by the
Saskatchewan Roughriders in the sixth round (44
th pick overall) of the 2019 Canadian Football League (CFL) draft on Thursday night.
This marks the second straight year that a Seahawk has been selected in the CFL Draft as his former teammate, linebacker
Mathieu Loiselle was also a sixth-round pick (60
th overall) of the Toronto Argonauts in 2018.
The longest-tenured former Wagner standout to ever play in the CFL was linebacker/fullback
C.O. Prime, a 2013 third-round pick (19
th overall) of the Hamilton Tiger-Cats where he went on to enjoy a five-year year career (2013-17) where he helped lead his team to Grey Cup appearances (equivalent to the NFL Super Bowl) in 2013 and 2014.
Though born in West Africa, the powerful 6-1, 300-pound Dabire has deep Canadian ties having lived in Montreal, Calgary during his grade school years before graduating from Toronto's Mount Carmel High School.
During his three-year Seahawk career, Dabire, a popular figure on campus who had the distinction of being named Wagner College's 2018 Homecoming King, saw action in all 33 games, gaining 19 starts. In that time, he recorded 73 career tackles, including 44 solo stops), along with 8.5 tackles for loss, highlighted by two sacks.
As a senior in 2018, he finished the season with a career-best 26 tackles (16 solo), highlighted by a standout performance at Central Connecticut (10/27/18) where he registered a career-high 10 tackles, (nine solo) and returned a fumble, off a blocked punt, 36 yards for a touchdown.
