ORONO – Christian Pereira enjoys being in the spotlight.

As a senior wide receiver on the University of Maine football team, that opportunity presents itself only 11 or 12 games a year – on a handful of plays.

Saturday will give Pereira a special chance to show his stuff when coach Jack Cosgrove’s Division I-AA Black Bears play at I-A Mississippi State.

Pereira is UMaine’s most animated player, especially after making a clutch first-down catch or a leaping touchdown reception.

“I’m an emotional kind of guy,” said Pereira, a polished speaker from The Bronx, N.Y., who believes he was conditioned to be the center of attention as the only child of Victor and Karen Pereira.

“Whenever I get to go out in front of a crowd with my teammates and we’re able to perform, it’s the greatest feeling in the world, whether they’re for you or against you,” he said.

While the NCAA frowns on celebrations, Pereira said his actions aren’t premeditated. In the case of gestures made after a recent TD catch against Montana he said, “I wasn’t even in my body. I really didn’t know what I was doing.”

“He’s certainly got a personality,” said Cosgrove. “He just has another way of demonstrating his emotional attachment to the game.”

Pereira has been one of UMaine’s most productive receivers in recent years. He leads the team with 12 catches for 149 yards and two TDs this season and has 110 receptions for 1,432 yards and 13 scores in his career.

“I think when it comes to getting up into the air and catching the ball, he’s made some of the most impressive catches I’ve ever seen,” Cosgrove said.

“He’s a touchdown-maker because of his size and ability down around the end zone and in the red zone,” he added.

On tape, Pereira quickly caught the eye of Mississippi State coach Sylvester Croom, who’ll see Pereira first hand Saturday night.

“[With] Pereira, you’ve got a 6-foot-3, 218-pound receiver who runs a 4.5 [seconds] or better [in the 40-yard dash],” said Croom, a former NFL assistant. “He’d have an excellent chance of playing for any school in [the Southeastern Conference], I assure you of that.”

Now, consider Pereira didn’t play organized football until his senior year at Cardinal Hayes High School in The Bronx.

“I always wanted to play football competitively, but my mother wouldn’t let me play,” said Pereira, a lifelong Yankees fan who instead excelled at baseball in his youth.

Even as a one-season wonder, Pereira clearly had talent. He was being recruited by Division II schools, but UMaine discovered the promising receiver and gave him a scholarship.

Pereira arrived at UMaine a bit raw in terms of his football knowledge.

“I think the hardest thing my freshman year was learning all the plays, getting all the jargon down, all the terminology,” he said. “I was just running and catching the ball.”

In the Bears’ offensive scheme, receivers are required to block. With the team thin on wideouts, Pereira saw playing time as a freshman.

“It’s almost unthinkable that we played him as a first-year because of his only playing one year in high school, but he had some skills that we wanted to use,” Cosgrove said.

Once he learned the plays, the terminology and the techniques, Pereira quickly came into his own. Last season, he caught 10 touchdown passes.

“I like being the big-play guy,” he said, crediting former Bears receiver Stefan Gomes with teaching him many of the finer points of the position through his outstanding play.

“I look at myself as a role player, as a changeup to the run game,” he said, quickly pointing out UMaine’s depth and talent at wide receiver.

Pereira, a communications major, relishes the chance to shine for the Bears.

“I’m not ready to grow up. I’m just going to live this year to the fullest,” he said.