A moment of silence, if you will, for Dr. Robert Cade, who passed away today at the age of 80.
If the name doesn't ring a bell, his greatest invention no doubt does. Cade's the guy who came up with Gatorade when the Florida football team was gasping for air and sustenance down there in the soupy autumn heat of Gainesville in 1965.
Since then, coaches all over America have been getting doused with the stuff on freezing football fields, an experience for which they owe Cade either a debt of gratitude or a doctor's bill. There are many stories surrounding Gatorade's birth, but the best comes from researcher Dana Shires, who told the Associated Press the first batch of Gatorade wasn't exactly ambrosia.
"It sort of tasted like toiler bowl cleaner," Shires recalled.
Left unsaid was how Shires knew what toilet bowl cleaner tasted like. Or whether it somehow played a role in Gatorade's invention.
We can only hope not.
-- Ben Smith
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