Did you know that, until the 1950s, more Americans died of kidney failure than cancer?
Dr. Robert Cade, originally a Texas native, was recruited in 1961 to open the new Division of Renal Medicine at the University of Florida. He was responsible for bringing some of the first dialysis machines, as well as performing some of the first kidney transplants, in the NCFL region.
However, he will be forever remembered for pursuing an idea that came to him while discussing college football with a security guard one morning over coffee.
More than a dozen players had ended up in the infirmary after Sunday’s game. Coaches believed that giving too much fluid would cause bloating and cramping, despite that players were losing up to 15 lbs of fluid in the sweltering summer heat and humidity.
The problem inspired him to look for a solution.
Through Dr. Cade’s research, it was also discovered that athletes were being drained by the loss of electrolytes. With his team, along with 10 volunteer freshmen to test the product, a formula was developed that quickly rehydrated and replaced the lost electrolytes with sodium and glucose.
The original drink was so unpalatable, however, that it was difficult to swallow. It was Dr. Cade’s wife, Mary, who suggested what would go on to become the classic, refreshing Gatorade flavor—lemon. The team stayed up all night hand-squeezing the citrus fruits to prepare the first batch.
In just 6 weeks, Dr. Cade had turned a chat about football into a full-fledged innovation. The drink received its first real test in the Gators’ 1965 game against the LSU Tigers football team. The Tigers faded in the 102 °F heat of the second half, and the Gators did not. Coach Graves was convinced, and asked Cade to produce enough of his potion for all Gator games.
Gatorade would go on to achieve national prominence as a result of the Gators’ first Orange Bowl title over the Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets in January 1967. The Gators reinforced their reputation as a “second-half team” and came from behind to defeat the Yellow Jackets 27–10.
Afterward, Georgia Tech head coach Bobby Dodd told reporters: “We didn’t have Gatorade. That made the difference.”
Dr. Robert Cade patented the Gatorade formula and offered all rights to the drink to the University of Florida, in exchange for their backing of the production and marketing of the drink. His proposal was turned down. However, when sales royalties reached $200,000, the University finally took notice.
The Florida Board of Regents—prompted by the U.S. Department of Health, Education and Welfare, which had provided Cade with a small grant for his research—demanded the patent rights. Cade refused. The Board of Regents, acting on behalf of UF, then brought suit against Cade for a share of the profits, arguing that UF facilities, employees and students were instrumental in the development of the product.
After 31 months of legal wrangling, Cade and the University negotiated a settlement of their dispute in 1972, and the Board of Regents and the UF settled for a 20% share of the royalties. Cade, and his investors in the Gatorade Trust, retained 80%.
In the aftermath of the settlement, Cade and the University resolved their differences amicably, and expanded their professional relationships—of the first $70,500 in Gatorade royalties received by the UF, they reinvested $999,999 in kidney research by Cade’s renal department and another $12,000 in Cade’s other research projects.
Dr. Cade, for his part, created multiple scholarships and contributed generously to UF from his own royalties over the following years. After the settlement, he continued to work for the UF, and the college of medicine named him professor emeritus of nephrology upon his retirement in 2004. He passed away in 2007. Until that time, UF had received over $150 million from its share of the Gatorade royalties.
Gatorade, now owned by PepsiCo, is today sold in 80 countries in over 50 flavors. In contrast to the $43 that Cade and his team spent to make the first experimental batch of Gatorade in 1965, Gatorade prompted the evolution of a multibillion-dollar sports drink industry in the years that followed. As of 2007, over 7 billion bottles of Gatorade were being sold annually in the US.
Of course, Dr. Robert Cade did not create Gatorade all on his own—he was part of a four-person team that included Cuban exile and “sweat expert,” Dr. Alejandro de Quesada.
Dr. Quesada was born in Camaguey, Cuba and was a medical school graduate of the University of Havana. Soon after he graduated, he spent two years in a mountainous region of Cuba, where he treated some of the country’s poorest people.
In the early days of the Castro regime, he was asked to sign a document stating his agreement with the dictatorship, but refused. As punishment, he was banished from his home country and strip-searched by the government at the airport. When he arrived in the States, he has no family, no possessions, not even a change of clothes—just $5 in his pocket.
After securing a job at D.C. General Hospital, he would go on to help start the medical school at the University of South Florida, also co-founding the Lifelink Foundation of Florida, which facilitates organ and tissue donations. As a protege of UF’s Dr. Cade, he was simply “at the right place, at the right time” to be involved with the research project that would change not only his life, but the beverage industry, forever.
Of course, he could have never predicted the success his future endeavors with Gatorade would bring him. In a rare interview, he said, “We were more interested in treating the individual with dehydration. We never thought there was commercial value in that.”
Though he never stated exact figures, he was open about the multimillions in royalties that he received from product sales.
“The Gatorade income allowed me to do the type of medicine I wanted to do without looking at the financial aspect,” he admitted.
The doctor-inventor also used the income to help send his children and grandchildren to top schools. That follows a lesson he learned from Castro’s Cuba, that an education is the best way to overcome life’s challenges.
“There are certain things,” he said, “that no one can take away from you.”
Dr. Quesada passed away in 2020, aged 88.
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