A Refreshing Legacy

IT STARTED with a simple question: "Doctor, why don't players wee-wee after a football game?" That query, posed by a Florida assistant football coach in 1965, inspired Dr. Robert Cade (above), the Gators' team physician, to invent a drink—on a $43 budget—that would replenish players' carbohydrates and electrolytes. Itwasn't easy. The first batch made him vomit, and another early batch tasted, in the words of one colleague, "like toilet bowl cleaner." But before long he had a working product: Gatorade. Cade, who died last week at age 80, lived to see his drink rake in $150 million for the school—and change the course of sports history.

? 1966: Twenty-six gallons of Gatorade are stolen en route to the Florida-Georgia game. Leading 10--3 at the half, the ade-less Gators wilt and lose 27--10.

? 1967: Florida wins its first Orange Bowl, beating Georgia Tech. Was the difference Heisman winner Steve Spurrier (right)? No, according to Yellow Jackets coach Bud Carson: "We didn't have Gatorade. That made the difference."

? 1970: Kansas City Chiefs coach Hank Stram—though not a paid spokesperson for the product—attributes his team's victory over the Vikings in Super Bowl IV to Gatorade.

? 1984: In the fifth inning of the deciding fifth game of the NLCS, Cubs second baseman Ryne Sandberg knocks over a cooler of Gatorade, drenching first baseman Leon Durham's glove. (Some versions of the story have this happening before the game.) Durham and coach Don Zimmer consider using a hair dryer on the glove, but Zimmer tells Durham that the soaking might bring good luck. Durham then commits a crucial error in the seventh inning, allowing the Padres to rally from a 3--2 deficit and win.

? 1985: The New York Giants begin one of sports' most enduring—and by now tiresome—postvictory traditions: dousing their coach, in this case Bill Parcells (left), with Gatorade.