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aIf it wasn't for this, "human nature" thing, you might have a point. Officials are not out there to regulate behavior, that's the job of the parent, coach and school. Our job is to insure that everyone abides by whatever rules govern the contest.
Obviously, we can only respond to what we see, and sometimes that might be 50 yards away. The responsibility for bad behavior rests entirely with the player, or coach, who decides when and how to exhibit it. Every player and every coach is RESPONSIBLE to know the rules, which means understanding the consequences of choosing to violate them. That decision is theirs, not ours. We're responsible for observing the behavior and knowing if, and what penalty, may be associated with it. We don't have any control over deciding when a player, or coach, chooses to do something stupid - that's on them, entirely.
The player who chooses to take a cheap shot, that has nothing to do with the outcome of a play, MUST understand that he is writing a check, that his teammates may have to pay a very expensive penalty for. The coach, of that player, MUST understand that the players action provides him with a teaching opportunity, that he had thusfar failed to recognize.
The penalized team did not lose an "otherwise legitimate gain", one of their teammates chose to discount and reject it. If you choose to minimize the penalty by allowing a live ball foul to be arbitrarily reduced to a dead ball enforcement, you are guilty of enabling that player to behave badly, which may only encourage him, or others, to repeat that behavior over and over again. Who benefits from that?
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