Happy Cooler Day, fellow dwellers.

	Jared Jeffries, right, A. J. Moye and the Hoosier Cinderellas are what make the NCAA Tourney great.

I've just made that up. Cooler Day.

Mexico has Cinco de Mayo. France has Bastille Day. The old Soviet Union had May Day, when they used to try and scare the bejeezus out of us by rolling tanks the size of Andy Reid down Moscow's main drag.

Now we, my dozen loyal readers -- comprised mostly of blood relatives and the occasional guy I went to college with -- have Cooler Day.

Something had to be done about this day. Something had to be proclaimed. I mean, I wake up this Monday morning with enough adrenaline pumping through my veins as to approximate Bruce Smith on game-day amphetamines.

This is it, my friends! Cooler Day! The Greatest Sports Day of Them All!

Opening Day of baseball and the NCAA basketball championship! Holy mother of calling in sick!

Wait. I need a brown paper bag for breathing exercises. I'm seeing stars. Or wait ... those aren't stars. Those are today's pitching matchups! Pedro at the Fens! Chief Garcia at Safeco! The Unit in whatever they're calling that monstrosity in the desert, Swimming Pool Yard, or whatever!

(I'm so geeked, I just sprung the exclamation point key on my laptop. Guess I'll have to use a new literary device.)

And then, after a full spring day of ball coast-to-coast ... the title game from the Georgia Dome!

(I found my exclam key. Taped it back on.)

When Caesar or Gregory or whoever formed our modern calendar 2,000 years ago, man set about figuring out its eccentricities. Leap years were needed. Full moons were identified. Eclipses were noted, and charted.

Who knew that same calendar would evolve, through years of the Earth rotating the Sun, to produce, in modern American society, Cooler Day? The stars are aligned each year at this time, fellow dwellers. Screw the vernal equinox. It's overrated.

Cooler Day is always that Monday in April when we begin our journey with the lads of summer -- if we generously include Halloween in the loose definition of "summer" -- and when we wrap up our journey with the boys of the winter hardwood.

The profundity of this day does not come lightly to me. In 1995, I was present in Seattle for the UCLA-Arkansas final, which history will now recall as Cooler Day '95. I remember about the Emerald City all afternoon a hum, a buzz, an electricity -- and it wasn't just the wattage coming off Bill Gates' home satellite near Lake Washington. Two schools of fans and alums gathered under a spring Seattle sky. We drank. We chanted. We sang. In short, we were a batch of Man United jerseys and a skinhead rampage short of being a Euro soccer crowd.

Cooler Day produced what is still one of my all-time favorite lines, from my guy Sully. Amid the pregame clamor for UCLA at a nearby tavern, former Bruin track star and world record holder in the long jump, Mike Powell, showed up to lead a few eight-claps. Amid the bonhomie, the rapport and the beers, Sully stood on a chair and shouted, while pointing to Powell: "Hey! HEY! Six billion people on the planet? Nobody jumps farther than this cat!"

Brought down the house.

The Bruins won, by the way.

So to you Terps, you Hoosiers, and all of you so damn lucky to have Opening Day tickets at the Oakland Coliseum, Fenway, Turner Field, Shea, Whatever Cincy's Field Is, Camden Yards, Kauffman Stadium, Swimming Pool Yard, Busch and Safeco ... Happy Cooler Day. From the bottom of my ever-lovin' heart.

To the List of Five:

1. Indiana
Who's not rooting for these guys? The 5 seed that never had a chance against Duke, Mike Davis with the cutest 3-year-old kid going, the classic red-and-white jerseys (among the best in the land, by the way), the hair-on-fire style of play, the cinematic pedigree.

Remember, Indiana films don't just include "Hoosiers," my friends. The charms of Bloomington were immortalized in "Breaking Away," also. Wait. The guys in IU from "Breaking Away" were all tools. The Cutters were the sympathetic ones. If IU wins, does that mean that one feather-haired tool from IU who drove that Porsche and tried to steal Katherine from Dave Stoller would be happy? Maybe we shouldn't root for IU.

Or perhaps I shouldn't worry about that Porsche-driver. After all, it's Cooler Day, and the strains of "Indiana, Indiana, Indiana, we're all for you" are always good goose-bump material. Besides, there's the whole B. Knight factor. I've never been anti-B. Knight. I'm just finding it sorta hilarious that the school might win a title

without him. I'm waiting for some enterprising fans tonight to unveil, like, an 80-foot-by-80-foot bedsheet tonight -- really, like a 12-man job just to get it airborne -- that reads, simply: WHAT'S UP, KNIGHT?

	Juan Dixon can help knock a huge monkey off the backs of his Terps.

2. Maryland
Who's not rooting for these guys? First appearance in the title game, the ghost of Len Bias finally put to rest, Juan Dixon hanging till his senior year (like most of these clowns who go early should do), the ACC-school-that-isn't-Duke-or-Carolina factor, and a coach bringing his alma mater to possible glory.

Only problem: No cinematic pedigree, unless you count the fact that the state of Maryland has a town called Chevy Chase. But Chevy Chase -- since 1984 -- has been one of America's Unfunniest Men, in a horse race down the stretch with Martin Short for Most Squandered Career.

So it looks like Indiana has the edge in intangibles.

Can't wait to see how it plays out.

3. A Brief Word on Sen. John McCain
I read the front page of the paper the other day. It must have been some sort of accident, or an extra-long stay in the men's room. Anyway, I saw where McCain is looking to ban gambling on college sports.

That's right. Looking to ban gambling on college sports.

I think you'll join me in picking up the nearest bullhorn and holding a vigil outside McCain's office in D.C.: "SEN. MCCAIN. THIS IS AMERICA SPEAKING. WE DUG YOUR WHOLE STRAIGHT-TALK EXPRESS THING. WE'RE NOT ARGUING YOUR WAR CRED. WE ARE, HOWEVER, SAYING THIS: STAY THE HELL AWAY FROM COLLEGE GAMBLING. PUT THE BILL DOWN ON YOUR DESK, AND BACK AWAY. STAY AWAY FROM THE BILL, SENATOR."

Thank you for your help on that one, Cooler-dwellers.

4. UConn women: Uh, congrats ... I guess
To be honest, I've held a grudge against Geno's Girls since the aforementioned title weekend of '95, when the Rebecca Lobo squad won it all. Sports Illustrated, given the chance to honor the return to glory for basketball in Westwood, instead put the UConn women on their cover. The UConn women. When UCLA won its first title in the post-Wooden Era.

The UConn women.

You gotta be kidding me.

So anyway, I've always rooted against the Lady Huskies. That is, when I bothered to muster up the iota of energy it took to recognize women's college hoops.

So they won another one this weekend. But my girl tells me the news is good: Our guy John Walters, ex-SI scribe, has penned a highly readable book on women's hoops in Storrs, Conn., and the victory will be good for sales. We're all for our pals making big cash. So, well done, Lady Huskies!

5. A final Cooler Day message
Forthwith, follow these instructions: If you are already at work, leave. Go to your nearest yard. Catch a ballgame. Then, retire to your nearest sports bar with your best drinking pals. Soak in the NCAA title game and realize life, for all its parking tickets and monthly bills, can sometimes work out. If you are not at work, repeat the above instructions.

And don't forget to send your Mom a Cooler Day card.

Come on. We're not animals here.

Brian Murphy of the San Francisco Chronicle writes the "Weekend Water Cooler" every Monday for Page 2.