JAY -It was a postcard day in the spring of 1986. The kind you wish you could bottle, so it could be enjoyed for years to come.

That's what Patsy Sexton thought as she glanced from a second-floor window on that March afternoon. The azaleas blooming. The sun shining. She could think of nothing more beautiful.

Or cruel.

Vince Martello, her son-in-law, was six months removed from an NBA tryout. He was a two-year starter at Florida State, a McDonald's All-American at Baker. He was 24, married and the father of a 4-year-old girl nicknamed Binky.

But he was also here, in a two-bed room at Baptist Hospital, surrounded by death and relatives with bloodshot eyes. That's the reality cancer provided, and as Sexton looked away from all the beauty life offers, she was immediately reminded of the pain that accompanies it.

''I just kept thinking, 'How could this be happening? How could he be dying before me?' ''

She knew Vince was ready to go. She had actually prayed for it. The pain had become unbearable. The medication useless. But she also was aware of the uncertainty that lingered. What would happen to his family? What would happen to Binky?

''Mr. Sexton,'' he had whispered to her husband the night before. ''You know when this is over, I need you to do something for me. I need you to help look after Binky.''

She looked at him now, admiring his courage. The fight had been draining. It had lasted more than five months. The only solace she had was that the end was near. Vince's pain soon would be over.

In two weeks, that day came.

Working hard

Thirteen years later, nothing is going right for the 6-foot blonde racing downcourt in a royal blue uniform. Her shot is off. Her legs are tired. And the Milton Panthers refuse to cooperate.

With six minutes left she drives baseline for a game-tying jump shot. Forty seconds later, she finds a teammate on a fastbreak for a 30-28 lead. Her team's last four points come from the foul line.

Jay escapes, 34-31.

''She just didn't shoot the ball well last night,'' Coach Terry McClure said. ''She doesn't catch it and shoot it. She wants to drive and create contact all the time, and that's something we've talked about a lot.''

Binky Coffman had finished with 22 points and 14 rebounds. By attempting 19 free throws, she also had set a school record.

But satisfaction doesn't come easily for the reigning Class 2A Player of the Year. She's the type who could make 11 of 12 attempts and complain about the miss. The sort who could grab 15 rebounds and remember the charge she didn't take.

''I set my standards way too high, I know that,'' the 17-year-old junior said in an accent that would make Reba McEntire jealous. ''But if you become satisfied with yourself, that's pretty much saying that's the end. There's always a way you can get better.''

Three weeks earlier, with the season still in infancy, McClure had stood in a Pensacola tennis complex at 9:30 a.m. on a Saturday. A visitor approached and inquired about Coffman, destined to become the school's first six-year starter.

''She's probably in the gym right now,'' McClure said.

''This early?''

''You've got to understand, this is the hardest-working girl I've ever had.''

Her numbers support his statement. Since averaging 9.3 points as a seventh-grader, Coffman's production has escalated to the 21.3 points and 12.3 rebounds she takes into this week's Class 2A regional tournament quarterfinals.

She's already the school's all-time leading scorer. She finished fifth in last year's Florida Miss Basketball voting. And tucked away in a closet at home, she has a box stuffed with recruiting letters, including the birthday card the University of Georgia faxed in October.

Binky Coffman has all this to show for her dedication. But as she sits in the bleachers of Jay's gymnasium, with tiny orange basketballs decorating her ears, only one topic occupies her thoughts.

Improvement.

''Dribbling, that's my biggest problem,'' she says. ''Especially with my left hand. I probably couldn't even brush my hair with my left hand.

''Work ethic is a very big thing with both my grandfathers. They tell me all the time about how hard my dad worked to get to where he was. They said he worked unreal amounts, and in a way, I guess that's what helps keep me going.''

Nurturing talent

Vince Martello's first gift was a basketball. He was dribbling before many could walk, shooting before others could skip.

Life wasn't so stable then. Coaching had led Gerald Martello … once a standout at Centenary College … all over the Southeast, but at least one routine seldom changed.

Each day, no matter where the Martellos called home, his son would be in the gym, trying his darnest to heave a basketball into the cylinder 10 feet above.

''I don't believe basketball players are made by someone else,'' said the elder Martello, who came to Baker in 1964.

''They're made from the drive within them, and that was something Vince always had. When we were traveling, you could just tell he became interested in the game. He developed a passion for it.''

The work ethic intensified. During the summer of his eighth-grade year, Vince set a goal of practicing 100 consecutive days. He was irate when a family trip to Mississippi dashed the plan.

But 96 was still an accomplishment.

In two years he was playing varsity as a freshman. The next season he averaged 18 points and 12 rebounds to earn first-team News Journal All-Northwest Florida status, an honor duplicated twice before graduation.

''The story back then was, Vince would never leave practice until he made 50 straight free throws,'' said Jay boys coach Lance Youngblood, who played against him two years. ''And if you ever saw him shoot, you'd believe it.''

He had blossomed into a coach's dream. A 6-foot-7 workaholic who could shoot over a zone or dunk over an opponent. A four-year letterman who had developed the confidence to overcome nearly any hurdle life offered.

As Gerald Martello sits in a small cafe two blocks from Baker High, he recalls razzing his son one day before Vince's senior season.

Frustrated, Vince grabbed the ball, threw it against the Baker backboard, caught it, turned in midair and dunked with both hands.

''Could you ever do that, Dad?'' he asked. ''Could you?''

''All hell,'' Gerald Martello responded on his way from the gym. ''I used to do that all the time.''

Finding a nickname

The origin of Coffman's nickname is contended among relatives.

Bernice Martello, Vince's mother, says Vince gave Katrina Michelle Martello the name because of her craving for a binky pacifier. Patsy Sexton agrees with the reason, but insists she's the one who applied Binky to Katrina. Or maybe not, she retracts. After all these years, who can be sure?

Teressa Coffman says she is.

''My sister Lisa gave it to her,'' said Binky's mother, who married Mike Coffman in 1987. ''Binky was probably 2 or 3 at the time, and one day she lost her pacifier and just wouldn't stop crying.

''So while we looked for it, Lisa kept saying, 'Binky, Binky, Binky. Binky, Binky, Binky.' And Binky must have understood because she stopped crying. From that point on, she became Binky.''

Vince and Teressa had married quietly on Oct. 27, 1980. Vince was only a freshman at the time, trying to find his place in the Southeastern Conference at Auburn. He had chosen Sonny Smith's squad over Kentucky because it was closer, more laid-back.

Love challenged those decisions.

With added responsibilities, his academics dropped. With new distractions, his performance suffered. Soon Vince, averaging five points and 10 minutes per game, decided a change was needed.

He would go to Gulf Coast Community College in Panama City to boost his grade-point average. He would enroll at Florida State for his last two years of eligibility.

In between, the couple would cope with the birth of their first and only child, born on Oct. 27, 1981, the Martello's first anniversary.

''Vince was such a mess that day,'' said Teressa, a 1979 Munson High graduate. ''He could never handle blood. Any time he saw it, he'd turn white as a ghost. He wasn't even going to go into the delivery room until I made him.''

The dream was starting to unfold for Vince. At Gulf Coast, he averaged 19.7 points and eight rebounds. At Florida State he started every contest, including the night he scored 26 against Pittsburgh, while former Los Angeles Lakers great Jerry West, now the team's executive vice president, watched.

Gerald Martello remembers that game for one reason, one play. Midway through the second half, Vince had grabbed a rebound and dunked in one fluid, midair motion.

It was the kind of effort that showcased his son's athleticism, the type that proved his NBA potential. And it made him proud.

''Vince could do a lot of things,'' said Steve Williams, an FSU assistant coach from 1980-86 who now coaches at Washington High. ''He was what you'd call a complete player. He could do it all. That's why we had a lot of plays designed just for him.''

After averaging 13.8 points his senior season, Vince became a sixth-round draft pick of the Atlanta Hawks. He attended the tryout and played his best for more than two weeks. He would call every day, telling Teressa, ''I made the cut. I made the cut.''

But he didn't survive the last one. And that's when the pain started.

First in his groin. Then in his legs.

''His brother kept telling me, 'Teressa, there's something wrong. Vince just doesn't look right. He's not out of shape and it's taking him too much energy to do little things,' '' Teressa said.

''But it was hard for me to believe it was anything serious. In fact, the first time he went to the hospital, I didn't even go.''

One doctor's appointment led to another. One test required a second. Three days later, the news finally hit. Vince had developed a rare type of cancer, one that usually developed in children, one that would never be fully identified.

Teressa was incredulous. She made the Crestview Hospital staff produce an X-ray to prove its diagnosis. What she saw was a quarter-sized area of white that stuck out like the moon on a starless night.

''That's it?'' Teressa asked, pointing at the white circle in Vince's midsection. ''This is what you can't cure? This is what's killing my husband?''

''No,'' the doctors replied. ''That's the only good your husband has left. He's covered. It's everywhere. We're sorry.''

Remembering her past

Gerald Martello says it's amazing. Binky was too young to remember her dad in uniform. She's never even seen him on videotape, but every time she shoots a free throw, he sees it.

She drys her hands on her shoes.

Just like her father once did.

Teressa sits in the living room of a two-story house off Munson Highway and picks up a photo of Vince dribbling at Florida State. ''Can you see it?'' she asks. ''He looks just like Binky there.''

Some see the resemblance in her shooting form. Others sense it in her work ethic. Though the last name's differ, that's Vince Martello's kid out there. The one scoring all the points.

''A lot of people come up to me during games and ask how I handle it,'' said Teressa, a 37-year-old legal assistant at Lindsay, Andrews, Leonard & Slingerland in Milton. ''Some of them come up and start crying. They're like, 'He'll never die,' and really, I think that's a good way to look at it.''

Binky herself has few memories of her father. She remembers the size of his hands and the summer days they spent at an apartment complex swimming pool in Tallahassee.

Besides that, she simply goes by the stories she's heard and the pictures she's seen, including the one taped to the speedometer of her 1994 pink Probe.

Next year promises to be big for her.

A scholarship awaits, probably to the Division I school of her choice. She'll get to leave Jay, an area too small for her taste, and she'll recapture a treasure lost when she was only a toddler.

After 12 years, Binky Coffman will once again become Binky Martello. She feels she owes her father that much, and vows not to sign a letter of intent until the name is legally changed.

The family's all for it. For security reasons -and a few of which she's now ashamed -Teressa had ''Martello'' dropped when she remarried in 1987. Because the second marriage has ended, she regrets her actions.

Binky, however, has no hard feelings. She's too locked into the present, which means aiming for the school's third Class 2A state title in five years. She remembers the paralyzed feeling that followed last year's semifinal defeat. How tournament officials had to nearly force her from the locker room because another team needed to dress.

''I don't even like talking about it,'' she mutters. ''It's nothing but shoulda, woulda, coulda. It still bothers me.''

She uses it as motivation, because that's what her father would've done. Anything to get better. Anything to make a difference.

That's all the guidance she needs. From a father she hardly knew, it's also all she has.

''I didn't know him very well, but I think about him a lot,'' said Binky, who visits her father's grave at Shady Grove Baptist Church cemetery in Baker at least three times a year.

''I know he's watching me, and hopefully I'm making him proud. I know I'm proud of him.''