For nearly three decades, the thrill of victory for football coaches everywhere has often come with the unmistakable taste of orange. Or fruit punch. Or lemon-lime.

The Gatorade shower may not be football’s oldest tradition, but it is surely the most flavorful, and it would be fitting if the Giants doused Coach Tom Coughlin this weekend if they beat the San Francisco 49ers in the N.F.C. championship game. After all, it was 25 years ago that the Giants popularized the postgame rite on their way to a Super Bowl title in 1987, with Harry Carson, Lawrence Taylor and Jim Burt standing as its somewhat sticky forefathers.

In the years since, the Gatorade shower has become liquidly diverse, with water and other flavored sports drinks considered suitable substitutes. Carson did a modified version of the shower when he dumped a Gatorade bucket filled with popcorn on President Ronald Reagan during a White House visit with the Giants, and the shower showed its crossover capability when the Boston Celtics soaked Coach Doc Rivers after winning the 2008 N.B.A. championship.

Even the digital frontier has been no match for the shower’s popularity; the Gatorade shower has a Facebook page, and dunking coaches was finally added as a feature in the latest Madden video game.