Wide receiver Darius Bright had waited the better part of his three seasons at the University of Hawaii for just this kind of a scrapbook moment.

A time when he could stand tall in the end zone and triumphantly hold aloft in the Halawa sky the football after scoring a touchdown.

Only when it came in the second quarter Saturday night at Aloha Stadium he couldn’t lift his right arm.

Couldn’t raise it above his waist without a tortured expression crossing his features.

On a night when the Warriors had plenty to celebrate in a 54-2 home-opening victory over Lamar, "the curse" of Darius Bright was not part of the merriment.

"Man, it is always something with me, isn’t it?" Bright said, his right arm in a sling and his shoulder wrapped, the result of an acromioclavicular joint sprain.

After going up between two defenders to snare an 8-yard TD pass from Sean Schroeder, Bright said he came down on his shoulder. How, he wasn’t certain.

"I just know that when I got up I knew something was wrong right away," Bright said. "I couldn’t do anything with the arm."

Bright said one of his teammates came over to pat him on the back and all he felt was pain.

From both sensitivity from the injury and the realization that his career, which finally seemed on the right track again at UH has again been set back. Maybe, he said, with a three-week layoff. "I feel like I have a curse," Bright said, shaking his head. "Whoever it is out there, somebody put like the voodoo on me. I can’t get rid of that thing."

Indeed, when Bright arrived from City College of San Francisco in 2010 he seemed the answer to UH’s long-running prayers: a tall (6 feet, 4 inches) receiver who could run, catch and spread defenses. The kind of go-up-and-get-it outside guy the Warriors had long envied but rarely had.

He was so promising that rather than waste his eligibility waiting for Greg Salas and Kealoha Pilares to graduate, they redshirted him. Then in 2011, which was to be Bright’s much-awaited coming out season, everything went wrong from the beginning.

He was involved in an offseason altercation that cost him an appearance in the opener. At Washington, despite some rust, he showed signs of breaking out with six catches. Then came a series of nagging injuries, including a chronic turf toe, that set him back. He managed just one touchdown in 19 catches and as much as he missed playing, the Warriors lamented his presence even more so.

This season Bright was shifted to tight end … and finally moved back to receiver. He didn’t play in the season opener at USC. But the injury to Billy Ray Stutzmann opened up playing time and this time Bright was ready and healthy, earning a starting job Saturday night.

Then, as the ball spiraled from Schroeder’s hands toward the end zone and an eager No. 82 went up to get it, things finally seemed, well, Bright again. The ball — and the moment — were in his tight grasp. Finally.

Only after he came down, thudding to the turf, instead of that toothpaste-commercial smile emerging, all he could do was grimace.

And wonder about "the curse."

Reach Ferd Lewis at flewis@staradvertiser.com or 529-4820.