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| Central Florida can get pretty hot and humid... especially when you're a college football player working out with your full uniform and pads on. The harder you work, the more you sweat, and the more you sweat, the more dehydrated you get. So you can imagine what happens during a high-intensity intramural game in the middle of a hot afternoon – you sweat so much that you start to fade in the second half of the game. And if you continue at a high level of intensity, you might get heat stroke and be out of the game. That was the situation at the University of Florida up until the 1960's. Fortunately, some researchers at the University had been working on the problem. They knew the answer was to create a drink that quickly replaced the fluids and salts that the body lost during high activity, but would be tasty enough so that players would drink enough of it to replace all the fluids they'd lost. Not an easy task, but by 1965 they managed to work up a formula that seemed to answer the need. They decided to test their drink on ten members of the university football team... the Gators. The drink soon became known as Gatorade. | |
 | With a little adjusting here and there, Gatorade soon began to work so well for the Gators that they became known as the "second half team," outplaying and outscoring their opponents in the second half of each game. They demonstrated increased efficiency and greater endurance when it counted. |
| Fast forward to January 1, 1967. The Gators had made it all the way to the Orange Bowl, and were playing Georgia Tech in a hard-fought battle. As usual, the Gators enjoyed Gatorade during the game, while the Georgia Tech team drank water. Film of the game shows what happened that day. As the second half began, the Georgia Tech team was slowing down. Their reflexes weren't there, they missed important plays. But the Gators looked like they had just begun the game. Their energy was up, they ran fast, and made some great plays. And they won the game, by a resounding 27-12. After the game, the losing Georgia Tech coach told reporters "We didn't have Gatorade. That made the difference." That statement was published in Sports Illustrated, and coaches and trainers across the country began to realize the importance of replacing body fluids during a game. Now you find Gatorade on the sidelines of every NFL football game, as well as at sports events of all kinds around the world. It's the number one sports drink everywhere it's sold. | |
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