As for the cliques, as a recently posted in another thread we have them at our high school. They talk about each other. They talk about each other's kids. I think the parents would rather have the team lose the game than have the kid in the other clique win the game.
The new (third year) coach has cleaned up some of it. Most of the problem will have graduated out of the program after this year. My goal will then become to pull all the parents together to support the team. I'll bite off the chewable chunks this year.
We have a three town school district. Some parents are just going to have to get over youth sports rivalries and realize we're all on the same side now.