JACKSONVILLE, Fla. (AP) — Dr. J. Robert Cade, who invented the sports drink Gatorade and launched a multibillion-dollar industry that the beverage continues to dominate, died Tuesday of kidney failure. He was 80.
His death was announced by the University of Florida, where he and other researchers created Gatorade in 1965 to help the school's football players replace carbohydrates and electrolytes lost through sweat while playing in swamp-like heat.
"Today with his passing, the University of Florida lost a legend, lost one of its best friends and lost a creative genius," said Dr. Edward Block, chairman of the department of medicine in the College of Medicine.