PIECES OF OUR PAST - DR. ROBERT CADE - THE JOURNEY BEGAN HERE.

 THE  JOURNEY BEGAN HERE

An ancient Chinese philosopher, Lao Tzu, once said, "The journey of a thousand miles begins with one step.  That step began in the summer of 1945 in San Antonio, Texas.  Robert Cade boarded a vehicle and headed for an assignment at the United States Naval Hospital in Dublin, Georgia, some one thousand crow-fly miles away.  

Cade (left) was born in San Antonio, Texas on September 26, 1927, the first child of Robert and Winifred Cade.  A speedy runner at Brackenridge High School, Robert was also a talented, teenage violinist.  As he approached his graduation from high school, an incomplete grade prevented Robert from obtaining his high school diploma on schedule in May 1945. 

U.S. Naval Hospital, Dublin, GA. 1945

    Robert Cade, who would not turn eighteen-years-old until early autumn of 1945,  joined the United States Navy.  His first assignment in the Navy was as a research assistant with Naval Medical Research Unit Four in Dublin, Georgia.  After one year, Robert transferred to serve aboard  the  USS Gherardi and finally aboard the  USS Rochester.  Cade’s three-year hitch ended in September 1948.  With the rank of pharmacist's mate third class, Cade’s path to his journey was set.

With his naval service behind him and his high school transcript complete, Robert Cade was on his way to become one of the most celebrated physicians in American history.  He returned home to the Lone Star State and enrolled at the University of Texas in Austin, Texas, a short drive from his hometown.

Robert kept a steady, high speed,  course heading in the direction of earning his bachelors and doctorate degrees from the University of Texas system, where he graduated in two of the normal four-year course load. 

In 1953, Robert Cade joined hands in marriage with Mary Strasburger, a nurse from Dallas, Texas, whom he providently met on that most challenging part of his journey through medical school. 

Following his graduation as a Doctor of Medicine from the University of Texas Southwestern Medical School in Dallas in 1954, Cade completed his always challenging internship at the Saint Louis City Hospital in Saint Louis, Missouri.  Dr. Cade returned to Texas to undergo his residency at Parkland Memorial Hospital in Dallas.  Some five years later, Parkland Hospital would become famous as the place where President John F. Kennedy was officially pronounced dead after being assassinated in November 1963. As the second leg of his journey was coming to an end, Dr. Cade served his fellowships at  Southwestern Medical School, and Cornell University Medical College in New York City.

The third and most important leg of Cade’s career journey came in 1961, Cade was accepted as a member of the faculty of the University of Florida College of Medicine.  As an assistant professor of internal medicine, Gainesville, Florida’s newest physician-professor began his life’ work concentrating on the study of the kidneys.

In 1965, Coach Dewayne Douglas, of the Florida Gators football team, was worried about the extreme dehydration faced by his players practicing and playing in the tortuous heat of August and September in the Sunshine State.  After interviewing coaches and players, Cade and his team discovered that the Gator players were losing five to ten percent of their body weight in water during long practices and three-hour games in the burning sun.  He remembered when he was a boy and the Dust Bowls inundated large areas  of his home state and in surrounding states. 

In the mid 1960s, Cade assembled a team of researchers to come up with a drink which would restore glucose and electrolytes to the players.  Along with doctors Dana Shires, James Free, and Alejandro M. de Quesada, Cade tested a batch of drink on the freshman players of Ray Graves’s team, which coincidently was on the precipice of becoming a driving force in the Southeastern Conference.

To almost everyone, the first sample, which cost the grand total of forty-three dollars to prepare,  tasted horrible.  According to Cade, when Gator lineman Larry Gagner first tried it, he spat it out and strongly suggested that the original experimental formula tasted more like bodily waste while others commented that it tasted like toilet bowl cleanser.  Mary Cade suggested to her husband that he could add lemon juice and cyclamates to the mix of salt, citrates, and fructose.

First eponymously named “Cade’s Ade,” the miracle drink was more aptly marketed as “Gatorade.”  

  The positive results were immediately apparent in a game played in 102-degree heat played on October 2, 1965 in Gainesville.  As the game moved into the second half, the Gators appeared to maintain their first half strength while the fifth-ranked LSU Tigers sweltered in the oppressive,  three-figure temperatures. Florida held on for a 14-7 win.  

In the following season, Graves’ Gators went 9-2 and defeated 8th the great, 8th ranked, powerhouse  Geogia Teach in the Orange Bowl.  Tech head coach Bobby Dodd told reporters: "We didn't have Gatorade; that made the difference."

Cade patented his Gatorade formula.  When no agreement between Cade and the University a two and one-half  year series of legal battles ensued., Cade and the university settled their claims in 1972.

Cade graciously shared his Lutheran beliefs by donating huge sums to Lutheran charities. He established his own foundation and donated to other charities as well.  Today more three hundred million dollars have been raised through royalties.. In April 2007, Cade was inducted into the University of Florida Athletic Hall of Fame as an "honorary letter winner.”

Dr. Robert Cade was extremely proud of his invention of a sports drink, but was more gratified with its wide-spread ane effective use in treating young children suffering from dehydration.

Robert Cade’s eight-decade  journey came to an end on November 27, 2007, when ironically, he  died of kidney failure, at the age of 80, in Gainesville.  Not too bad for a seventeen-year-old, fleet-footed, violin- playing, country boy from Texas, who began his journey in medicine right here in Dublin, Georgia in the autumn of 1945.