The Drink Named After a Football Team: How Gatorade Started

You just ran around the yard for an hour. You're sweaty, you're thirsty, and your legs feel like wet noodles.

So why did a college football team get its very own drink?

It's nineteen sixty-five at the University of Florida. A Gators coach asks a kidney doctor named Robert Cade a funny question. Why don't football players need to pee after a game?

Cade's team tested the players. In the Florida heat, they were sweating out water and salt, and their blood sugar was low. They were running on empty.

So the doctors mixed water, salt and sugar. By all accounts, the first batch tasted so bad none of the scientists could stomach it. Cade's wife, Mary, suggested lemon juice. That helped.

Now, legend versus truth. The famous story says freshmen drank it during a practice game, then came back in the second half and crushed the older players. Even the university's own write-up calls that part a legend.

Here's what the record shows. In nineteen sixty-six, newspapers noticed the Gators winning in the second half and wrote about the drink. One of Cade's doctors, Jim Free, suggested a name after the team. Gatorade.

Fun fact. The drink has earned the University of Florida more than two hundred fifty million dollars, money that helps pay for research.

Try this. Taste plain water, then water with a squeeze of lemon. Which one would you rather drink after a game?

Brought to you by Wonderade, the juice you wish you had when you were growing up.