Dr. Robert Cade, the inventor of Gatorade, just passed away at the age of 80. I drank A LOT of Gatorade back in my High School (lime and orange are my favs) sports days and still pick up a bottle from time to time when I’m in Home Depot. Thank you Dr. Cade, from me, a couple of million sweaty folks, and all my replaced electrolytes.

Cade and three colleagues developed Gatorade in 1965 to help the Florida Gators football team replace carbohydrates and electrolytes lost through sweat while playing in the swamp-like heat of Gainesville, Fla. The first batch cost $43 in supplies, and “sort of tasted like toilet bowl cleaner,” Dana Shires, one of Cade’s collaborators, told the Associated Press.

Researchers added sugar and lemon juice for flavor, and they left the rest to the likes of Steve Spurrier, the Florida quarterback who won the Heisman Trophy in 1966 while being fueled by Gatorade.

“The invention was great, but it needed the Florida Gators as a vehicle,” Rovell said. “There had been other sports drinks available, but this was the perfect storm with Steve Spurrier and a good football team.”

Cade and his collaborators were enmeshed in a legal dispute in the late 1960s and early ’70s over rights to the Gatorade brand. The dispute was settled by awarding the university a 20 percent share of royalties, which to date total about $100 million. Gatorade today is marketed by Quaker Oats, a division of PepsiCo Inc.

Link [Houston Chronicle]