DORIAN GEIGER
Sports Editor

As a tidal wave of orange Gatorade showered Green Bay Packers’ head coach Mike McCarthy following his team’s victory at Super Bowl XLV, I became perplexed at how the quirkiest custom on football’s biggest stage came to exist.

The ambush of an unsuspecting head coach with the contents of a water cooler is a curious sideline convention woven into the fabric of professional football. And these days, a Super Bowl just isn’t a Super Bowl without the water cooler antics that accompany the winning team’s celebratory proceedings.

It’s difficult to ascertain who the original inventor of the esteemed age-old tradition is but the convention reportedly got its start in the NFL with the Chicago Bears. After winning a regular season game over the Minnesota Vikings in 1984, linebacker Dan Hampton, along with teammates Steve McMichael and Mike Singletary submerged Bears’ head coach Mike Ditka in the sweet, sticky sports beverage.

Later popularized in 1985 by New York Giants’ Jim Burt and Harry Carson, did the whacky ritual become commonplace. Burt, agitated by head coach Bill Parcells’ harassment of him, targeted Parcells with the contents of an upside down Gatorade cooler after a 17-3 win over the Washington Red Skins. Burt’s deviance attracted a loyal fan in teammate Carson and the Pro Football Hall of Fame linebacker began to regularly shower Parcells after every win en route to Super Bowl XXI. Parcells bathed in Gatorade 17 times during the 1986 season.

Visiting the White House after securing a Super Bowl win that year, Carson brought his zany post-game ritual with him. Instead of Parcells, Ronald Reagan became the newest victim of Carson’s horseplay. Possibly afraid of ruining Reagan’s suit and drenching his hair, Carson playfully opted to dump a cooler full of popcorn on Reagan instead. Carson later bragged on his website, “How many people can say they did that to the president with secret service agents standing near with guns under their jackets?”

Over time, the ritual has become informally dubbed the “Gatorade shower,” with the sports drink becoming the official liquid of the water cooler custom. In the modern era of corporate sports marketing, Gatorade has become the official sports drink of almost every major professional sport, so it’s no wonder the beverage behind the science of sweating became the face of this ritual. It’s speculated less privileged championship teams use Powerade, or — gasp — water to provide their coach with a complimentary downpour. Although, such a statement would be strongly refuted by Adam Sandler’s eccentric character in the football comedy The Waterboy. Sorry, Bobby Boucher.

As harmless as the water cooler tradition seems, the ritual came under suspicion as the potential culprit in the death of former Long Beach State 49ers head coach George Allen. A season-ending victory over the University of Nevada in November 1990 resulted in Allen’s dousing with icy water by his players. A little over a month later, Allen passed away from ventricular fibrillation. A week prior to his death Allen had speculated in an interview that his health had not been the same since his water cooler soaking. Had the 49ers been able to afford Gatorade, Allen might have avoided the hypothermic encounter.

Mimicking its big brother the NFL, the CFL has adopted the Gatorade shower in recent years too. The water cooler ritual also made its transition into professional basketball after Boston Celtics’ Paul Pierce gave his coach Doc Rivers a Gatorade rinsing in the 2008 NBA championship.

Let’s face it — no other liquid could have cultivated this iconic tradition the way Gatorade has. So next time you decide to applaud the efforts of your superior, coach or not, saturate that special somebody with the sweet, syrupy goodness only Gatorade can provide — and don’t cheap out on water either!

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image: Wikimedia Commons