( Mental Floss ) -- Snow and ice may be dominating the weather report , but January is also a great time for another very specific type of precipitation : the Gatorade shower . With the college bowl season winding down and the NFL playoffs heating up this weekend , get ready to see some coaches covered in sports drink . Here are the answers to some burning questions about this fairly new tradition . Who started the tradition ? Although the exact origins of the tradition are hotly debated , former New York Giants defensive tackle Jim Burt often gets the credit for the first bath . According to Darren Rovell 's interesting book `` First in Thirst : How Gatorade Turned the Science of Sweat into a Cultural Phenomenon , '' Burt had the idea for the prank while the Giants were struggling during the 1985 season . Head coach Bill Parcells had been riding Burt pretty hard before a midseason game against the Washington Redskins , and after the Giants emerged from that game with a 17-3 win , Burt playfully dumped a cooler full of Gatorade on the Big Tuna . Linebacker Harry Carson , a favorite of Parcells , took the baths to the next level . While Burt eventually decided the dousing had lost its originality , Carson kept it up , showering Parcells with Gatorade after each of the Giants ' wins en route to their Super Bowl championship during the 1986 season . However , while Burt and Carson popularized the Gatorade shower , they did n't pull off the first dunking . That honor goes to former Chicago Bears lineman Dan Hampton , who collaborated with teammates Steve McMichael and Mike Singletary to get coach Mike Ditka wet after a regular-season win over the Vikings in 1984. Who was Carson 's most famous victim ? When the Giants made their trip to the White House in early 1987 to celebrate their Super Bowl victory , Carson brought the tradition with him . His target : none other than Ronald Reagan . Of course , it would have been a crime to mar Reagan 's fastidiously styled hair with sports drink , so Carson showered the president with a Gatorade cooler full of popcorn . Carson later wrote on his Web site , `` How many people can say they did that to the President with Secret Service agents standing near with guns under their jackets ? '' Mental Floss : See Reagan getting the Gatorade treatment . What did Gatorade think of the whole idea ? How could any company be irked by such great free advertising ? When Gatorade 's head of sports marketing , Bill Schmidt , heard John Madden describing the Gatorade shower to millions of viewers during a Giants-49ers playoff game , he said , `` I think I 've died and gone to heaven . '' Did Parcells and Carson get anything for their trouble ? According to Rovell , since Gatorade did n't actually invent the ritual , they were n't quite sure how to handle the situation . To show the brand 's gratitude to the coach and his linebacker , Gatorade sent both men $ 1,000 Brooks Brothers gift certificates , along with a note from Schmidt . ( `` We do feel somewhat responsible for your cleaning bill , '' he wrote . ) After the G-Men won the Super Bowl , though , a more formal endorsement seemed like a good idea . Parcells got a $ 120,000 deal for a three-year deal , and Carson picked up $ 20,000 of his own . Did any coaches truly loathe the Gatorade bath ? Of course . Legendary Miami Dolphins head coach Don Shula wanted no part of a Gatorade shower and ordered his players not to douse him . Mental Floss : Coaches do the darndest things ( like stage their own death ) Has a victory bath ever turned deadly ? Possibly . In November 1990 , 72-year-old former Redskins and Rams coach George Allen led Long Beach State to a season-ending victory over UNLV , and his players rewarded him with a dunk from the cooler . Dousing a septuagenarian with cold liquid is a questionable move even in a temperate climate , and the drenching did quite a number on Allen 's body . He died of ventricular fibrillation on December 31 , 1990 ; just one week earlier , he had commented in an interview that his health had never really returned following the bath . Do n't blame Allen 's death on Gatorade , though . According to Allen , the team `` could n't afford Gatorade , '' so the possibly deadly liquid barrage was regular old ice water . What other Gatorade baths have gone wrong ? It was n't deadly , but the Gatorade shower Kentucky coach Guy Morriss received in the waning moments of the Wildcats ' 2002 game against LSU was pretty embarrassing . With just seconds left to play in the game , Kentucky looked like a lock to pull off a major upset over the Tigers , so Morriss ' players doused the coach with Gatorade . Unfortunately for Morriss and Big Blue Nation , there 's a difference between looking like a lock to win and actually winning . LSU wideout Devery Henderson quickly scored a miracle touchdown on a tipped Hail Mary play , and Morriss was left standing on the sidelines , drenched and disappointed . Mental Floss : What 's a Crimson Tide , anyway ? Has the Gatorade bath made the leap to other sports ? Sure it has . When the Boston Celtics captured the 2008 NBA title to end a 22-year drought , Finals MVP Paul Pierce doused coach Doc Rivers with a cooler full of red Gatorade . Reporters speculated that this might have been the first time the Gatorade shower had crossed over to the NBA . For more mental_floss articles , visit mentalfloss.com . Entire contents of this article copyright , Mental Floss LLC . All rights reserved .
Book : The New York Times Jim Burt popularized Gatorade shower . Harry Carson threatened President Reagan with shower , but used popcorn . Miami Dolphins head coach Don Shula ordered players not to shower him . Liquid tradition spread to the NBA in 2008 .