He was intrigued by the problem and decided to delve into it further with his research team. The key to the solution was a research paper delivered by a former UF resident, Sidney Malawer, who discovered that liquids with glucose and salt moved more quickly through cell walls than plain water.
Douglas set up a meeting between Head Coach Ray Graves and Dr. Cade, who tried to explain what he had in mind. “Graves said, ‘Well, I don’t know much about what you’re talking about, but I have no objection if you want to study the freshman football team. It’s OK with me but keep your hands off my Varsity.’ That is an exact quote,” Shires said by phone.
Cade and his research team, which also included Richard Cunningham, James Free and Alejandro de Quesada, conducted studies on 10 freshmen players that summer, drawing blood and urine samples to keep track on their blood volume, their salt and sugar levels, and lipid levels.
“They would bring urine and blood samples to me to run tests on to see what the difference was in various time frames, whether they were consuming the Gatorade or not,” said Loren Roby, a lab technician who crunched the data for Cade. “We were looking at the sodium and potassium they were putting out through their urine or blood content.”
The evidence was clear. At a time when it was common practice to give players salt tablets and not let them drink water for fear of cramping, the players were sweating away massive amounts of fluid and electrolytes, and burning the carbohydrates that gave them energy.
Through trial-and-error, Cade and his team concocted a formula of water, sodium, potassium, phosphate and sugar, and tested it out on the freshmen players.
The taste was horrible. Some players spat it out, others vomited. They described as tasting like urine or toilet bowl cleaner.
“It certainly wasn’t anything you could talk about. We said it tasted like sweat but we were being kind,” said Chip Hinton, a strawberry breeder in Brandon who was a freshman linebacker and center in 1965. “It was unpalatable.”
It got better, thanks to a suggestion from Cade’s widow, Mary, to add lemon juice and cyclamate to the formula. “Mrs. Cade was very involved with improving the flavor,” Hinton said, recalling how people would squeeze lemons into a five-gallon container each night to add to the mixture.
The first real proof of the formula’s ability to give players a boost came in the October 1, 1965 when the freshman squad played the varsity B team. As expected, the varsity players clobbered the freshmen during the first half. But the freshmen drank Cade’s concoction and mopped up the field with the varsity B team in the second half.
The next day, UF played fifth-ranked Louisiana State University Tigers in 102-degree heat. Graves asked Cade to whip up a batch of his formula and kept it on the sidelines for anyone willing to drink it. The Gators won 15-7.
