Which is apparently why you should drink Gatorade:

I touched on this on The Dagger last night, but it bears repeating somewhere I don’t have to worry about Gatorade’s marketing hounds coming after me. Gatorade is basically sugar water, right? It’s not hugely nutritional. Don’t get me wrong — it tastes fantastic, and I drink it like yachts: on the reg. Everything cynical and intellectual about me rebels at the idea of being sold sugar water with a catchy marketing campaign. And yet, when the best commercials come out, I can forget that cynicism for a moment and revel in a really good, really thoroughly committed concept. That’s what this ad is.

Or maybe it just gives me goosebumps. Either way, it’s good.

Anyway, before you go, be sure to read MPS blog’s own Will Brinson in his interview with John Wooden. They even discuss the poem chosen for the spot:

WB: Well, Coach, first of all, I just wanted to ask about the inspiration behind the poem in your new commercial, “The Little Chap That Follows Me,” and the background behind it.

JW: It was given to me when my son was born, and I liked it so much that I had it framed immediately and it’s been on the wall where I will see it whenever I’m home every day since then. I just like the thought that is expressed. [Coach Wooden recites the entire poem by heart at this point.] But it represents, I think, what a parent should be thinking about as far as their children are concerned, and it made quite an impression on me.

I think it’s fair to say it’s made an impression on all of us. If that had to happen via Gatorade commercial, fine.