One of the members of our coaching staff asked early on about Friday early starts because the middle school that his DD and two others attend is having to go very late as a result of the "hurricane" last fall (knocked electricity out to the school for a week). So we've been very attentive to the tournaments that said they were starting early on Friday and the TDs have graciously started us late on the Fridays in question.
As much as I agree that parents need to be working on Friday and that as a result getting their DDs to tournaments can be a real pain, I'm afraid that the issue of whether tournaments should start early on Fridays is far behind us. The really good tournaments can, and often do, start on Friday (sometimes even Thursday evenings) without being at risk that they won't be able to fill their tourneys. This has been the norm for at least 8 years, when our DD started playing really competitive travel tournaments.
One effective way to deal with this is to have the parents create "Friday pools" where each parent takes one or two Fridays when they will drive their DD and some of her teammates to the tourney.
For coaches, it's really not easy. Ted and I have a lot of flexibility in our schedules, but if I get hit with a court date on Friday (and believe it or not, that "court date" includes not just my docket but being a JUROR for the month of June), I'm probably going to miss some Friday games.