Could it be? Was Gatorade actually created by a Florida State University team doctor and called "Seminole Firewater"?
The rumor has been circulating for more than a year on the Internet, but it was thrust into the national spotlight on Saturday during UF's football game against Florida State University, which aired on ABC in a "Did You Know?" segment.
When contacted by e-mail, Michael Humes, spokesman for ESPN, which produces ABC's sports programming, admitted the station made a mistake in airing the segment.
"While we had multiple sources for the information," Humes wrote, "we did not research that information thoroughly enough to put it on the air."
At the end of the second quarter, the segment aired and said an FSU team doctor named R.A. Johnson actually created the famed sports drink - not Dr. Robert Cade and his team of UF doctors.
The segment said Johnson created the beverage in 1962. Cade and his team created their lemon-flavored electrolyte drink in summer 1965, testing it on UF football players.
In a phone interview, Humes declined to name the sources.
Still, Internet forums are chock-full of debates about the origin of UF's beloved Gatorade, which has netted UF more than $150 million in royalties, according to an article on UF's Web site.
Many posts make reference to an article published in 1962 in The Tampa Tribune that claims Johnson developed a sports drink for FSU's football players years before Gatorade was invented.
The article, which ran on Sept. 26 of that year, does lend some support to the theory.
"To combat the deadly combination of high temperature coupled with high humidity, Dr. Johnson came up with a concoction known as 'Seminole Firewater,' which consists of a lime drink fortified with sugar and salt," the article reads.
Steve Orlando, UF spokesman, said even if the claims in the article are true, it doesn't change anything.
"It's an interesting piece of history, but it doesn't change the fact that Gatorade was invented at the University of Florida," Orlando said.
The theory about "Seminole Firewater" was also disputed by one of the four inventors of Gatorade, who happened to be watching Saturday's game.
"Of course I've never heard of it," Dr. Dana Shires told CNBC.com. "It's just another stupid stunt from the guys at Florida State."
As for where ABC got its information, Orlando said it's possible a researcher pulled it from a Wikipedia entry.
Browning Brooks, spokeswoman for FSU, said the "Seminole Firewater" theory is not FSU's attempt to rewrite history.
"Nobody at FSU is claiming that we invented Gatorade," she said. "That's silly."
Brooks said she thinks FSU was developing a similar product around the same time but said she doesn't think Gatorade's unique formula was created first at FSU.
FSU President T.K. Wetherell, who played football for FSU from 1963 to 1967, said he remembers drinking a Kool-Aid flavored drink called "Seminole Firewater" when he was on the team, according to Brooks.
Wetherell said players were also given an orange slice, an ice cube to suck on and salt pills to keep dehydration at bay, Brooks said. Wetherell told her many teams were experimenting with sports drinks at the time.
