2 Gangs Celebrate Truce on the Field : Football: Pacoima Project Boys and Sun Valley Vinelands play a game. Organizers encourage mutual respect.

Long after the 300 or so rival gang members forget the score of Saturday’s great football game, 19-year-old Victor Perez might remember how it felt on the sidelines, watching the action from his wheelchair.

Perez was three weeks away from being protected by the now 110-day truce among San Fernando Valley gangs, celebrated by the game between the Pacoima Project Boys and the Sun Valley Vinelands. On Oct. 3, when he and two other Project Boys walked through a Panorama City parking lot, Perez was shot in the back by an unknown assailant.

As he watched his homeboys give up the second of two touchdowns for a 12-0 loss to the Vinelands, Perez quietly said it is unlikely he will walk again.

“Sometimes I get mad when I see everyone get along, because of what happened to me,” Perez said, noting that before the truce, the attack on him would have met with swift reprisal. As it is, he said, his deadened legs have gone unavenged.

“But other times, I think it’s better this way, because I don’t want nobody to go through what I’ve gone through.”

Perez--and the football game he watched--represent the triumph and the difficulty of getting thousands of Valley gang members to lay down their weapons. Although most of the vatos , or homeboys, have come to believe in the value of a truce, no one is saying it has been easy.

On Saturday, the rivals gathered at Pacoima Park well before the noon kickoff, checking out the competition as they gravitated to opposite sides of the playing field.

Some gang members had met their longtime enemies at weekly “commission” meetings, which since Oct. 31 of last year, have given representatives from Valley gangs a chance to get together and work out differences without confrontation. Others knew their rivals only from the street, from the days when the words “Vinelands” or “PBS” etched across a neck or arm were enough to provoke a shooting.

The kickoff, which the coin toss-winning Project Boys choose to receive, was preceded by the removal of earrings, necklaces, bracelets and rings. Referees from the city’s Department of Recreation and Parks, the Cities in Schools program and the YMCA explained that tackle football with “college rules” meant no chopping at the legs, no airborne tackles and no piling on.

The first quarter was an effort in feeling out the terrain. Hits were swift and fair, with tacklers often jumping up after a knock to prove their lack of offense; whistles were long and hard, an effort to keep tackles from erupting into brawls.

Early in the second quarter, as the on-lookers howled, the Vinelands’ Marcos Velasquez scored a touchdown on a pass from quarterback Raunel (Cyclone) Vargas, ending the first half at 6-0. The crowd cheered Velasquez using his street name, “Iceman.”

Among those watching from the sidelines was William (Blinky) Rodriguez, a 39-year-old Van Nuys businessman whose son was killed four years ago during a drive-by shooting. Rodriguez was an organizer of the gang truce.

Joined by Los Angeles City Councilman Richard Alarcon, who represents Pacoima, and officers from the LAPD’s Foothill Division, Rodriguez made his way to both sides of the field, reminding players that they could cheer their own players and still show respect to their opponents, and could hit hard without hitting to hurt.

Laura Lopez, 17, watched the game from the Vinelands’ side. Standing with three friends and their young children, Lopez ticked off the street names of friends killed by members of the gang who now stared at her from across a grassy field.

“There was Dealer and Cuzzy and Giant,” Lopez said. “You can still be angry, but you have to change. Now, maybe we won’t lose more of them.”