of thanks for the family’s generous donations from UF club sports teams to local organizations like Gainesville Young Life and others. Bailes reflected on how she meets people at least once a week who have stories about how the Gatorade founder impacted their lives. She remembers being at her son’s baseball game conversing with one of the other moms when she told Bailes, “‘My dad was an air conditioning repairman, went to his house and was repairing his air conditioning. They ended up talking about me going to college, but he didn’t have the funding, and Dr. Cade paid for two years of my school.’ There are stories like that throughout this community.” Long remembers when athletes used to drink large amounts of water to combat dehydration, but their muscles still cramped up from a lack of potassium and salt, hence why they turned to salt tablets. “If you just constantly hydrated yourself with Gatorade, you didn’t have to worry about trying to time ‘OK when I supposed to take (salt tablets) because I’m out there playing tennis in August in Florida and I’m sweating like crazy.'”
IDEAS
The electrolyte beverage has also opened up an avenue for an entire industry. Before the drink’s inception, the sports performance industry wasn’t nearly as developed as it is now. After its success, it established a need and want for other performanceenhancing products. This comes as no surprise
Stephanie Bailes, president and executive director of the Cade Museum said the sports drink has had significant impacts in many ways. The success of the product influenced not only the town it was invented in, but also set a precedent for inventions that came after it, opening up a new industry and proving itself to serve medicinal purposes. The local effect of the beverage on Gainesville and the University of Florida’s community was significant. Its success created a system and established “a pathway to commercialization” for future local inventions, according to Bailes. Gatorade isn’t the only invention to impact lives beyond the county lines. Dr. Thomas Maren’s Trusopt, an eye drop glaucoma drug, has delivered more than $250 million in royalties to the University of Florida. Taking after the precedent set by the Cades, Maren also charitably donated much of his portion of the earnings to support additional research at the university, according to the University of Florida News website. The prosperity of the sports drink increased the personal wealth of the altruistic Cade family who has been known to constantly give back to their community. According to Bailes, who said she personally witnesses their local impact just by peeking into her office’s hallway, the Cades are also known to say they are “blessed to be a blessing” to the community. There, Bailes sees all the plaques
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considering the stark difference it made in Florida football players' performances on the field during the product’s testing period. Gainesville was founded as a result of the Florida Railroad linking Fernandina and Cedar Key. The railway was used to carry goods to and from each coast, according to the City of Gainesville. Bailes recalled that Phoebe Cade Miles, the founder of the Cade Museum, always said, “They used it to export produce and Gainesville has moved from an exporter of produce to an exporter of ideas.” Though the Gators may lose a game now and again, the opposing teams still celebrate their win by dumping what on their coaches? Gatorade. The Origins Is sue 63
