My role model is my dad.

Host: The evening light was fading across the small town, casting long shadows over the worn baseball field. The bleachers were empty now, their metal frames catching the last rays of the sun. The air smelled faintly of grass, dust, and distant smoke from someone’s backyard barbecue.

Jack sat on the lowest bench, elbows on his knees, a half-empty bottle of soda dangling from his hand. His eyes, grey and far away, watched the sky turn from gold to violet. Jeeny stood near the old dugout, her hands tucked into her jacket, her hair dancing with the wind.

Between them lay the quiet of old memories, the kind that don’t leave but grow lighter with time.

Jack: “You know what Seann William Scott once said? ‘My role model is my dad.’ Simple as that. No philosophy. No filters. Just… that.”

Jeeny smiled softly, her eyes reflecting the fading light.
Jeeny: “That’s not simple at all, Jack. That’s the hardest thing to say honestly. Most people spend their lives trying to outgrow their fathers.”

Jack: “Yeah. Or trying not to become them.”

Host: The crickets had started their song, a steady hum that filled the pauses between words. The air was cooling, and somewhere a dog barked at the growing dark.

Jeeny: “Was your dad your role model?”

Jack: “No.”
He paused, taking a slow breath.
Jack: “He was the opposite. The guy you swear you’ll never be like. The guy who comes home drunk, yells too much, forgets your birthday, but somehow still shows up to fix your bike the next morning. A contradiction you spend your whole life trying to decode.”

Jeeny: “Maybe that’s still a kind of role model.”

Jack frowned. “How do you mean?”

Jeeny: “A role model isn’t someone perfect, Jack. It’s someone who shapes you. Even their failures carve something into you. You learn from who they are—and who they couldn’t be.”

Host: The wind picked up, carrying with it the faint sound of a passing train—a low, haunting rumble that seemed to pull time with it. Jack stared into the distance, lost in its rhythm.

Jack: “You know, when I was a kid, my dad worked nights at the mill. I barely saw him. But I remember once, I woke up at dawn and found him sitting in the kitchen, still in his work clothes, just staring at his hands. They were rough, cracked, black with oil. I asked him if it hurt. He said, ‘Yeah. But you get used to it.’”

Jeeny: “That’s what men were taught, Jack. To get used to pain. To wear it like armor.”

Jack: “Yeah. And then they teach us the same thing. Generation after generation, we inherit silence like it’s love.”

Host: The sky deepened into navy, the stars emerging one by one, faint and tentative. Jeeny walked closer, sitting beside him on the bench. Her voice was gentle, but her eyes burned with thought.

Jeeny: “Maybe that’s why Scott said what he said. Maybe he wasn’t idolizing perfection. Maybe he was honoring the quiet parts—the unspoken love, the little sacrifices. The ones you only understand when you’re old enough to carry your own weight.”

Jack: “You think that’s love? A man working himself to death for a family that barely sees him?”

Jeeny: “It’s a kind of love, yes. Not the poetic kind. The stubborn kind. The one that builds the roof and doesn’t complain about the rain.”

Host: Jack looked down at his hands, the faint scars, the lines of work and years. His voice softened.

Jack: “He used to say he didn’t want me to be like him. He said, ‘You’re gonna use your head, not your hands.’ He meant it like a blessing. But I think it was guilt. He wanted me to have what he never could.”

Jeeny: “And you did.”

Jack: “Yeah. But now I fix things behind a desk instead of in the garage. And I don’t know if that’s better. Sometimes I miss the smell of oil and the sound of his radio playing old rock songs. Back then, it felt like life was… real.”

Jeeny: “Maybe what you miss isn’t the work. It’s the man. The one you never told was your role model.”

Host: The words struck him quietly, like a gentle echo in a cathedral. Jack looked at her, his face shadowed, the tension between pride and tenderness trembling behind his expression.

Jack: “I don’t know if he deserves that word.”

Jeeny: “Maybe role models don’t have to deserve it. Maybe they just have to be the ones who shaped the map. Even if they left a few wrong turns in it.”

Jack: “You always make broken things sound beautiful.”

Jeeny: “Maybe that’s because we’re all built from broken things.”

Host: A long silence fell. The stars above grew brighter, and the field was bathed in a thin silver light. Jack took another sip from his bottle, the sound small in the vast stillness.

Jack: “You know, I think of him every time I screw something up. Like he’s still watching, waiting for me to curse under my breath the same way he used to. And when I fix it… when I actually fix it… I still want to show him.”

Jeeny: “That’s love, Jack. The kind that doesn’t need words.”

Host: He smiled faintly then, the kind of smile that comes from remembering something that hurts and heals at the same time.

Jack: “Maybe that’s what Scott meant. Not that his dad was flawless, but that he was there. Standing in the backdrop of every mistake and every victory. The invisible architecture of who you become.”

Jeeny: “Exactly. A role model isn’t a mirror—it’s a shadow that guides your steps.”

Jack: “And maybe the greatest act of love a father gives… is the chance to be better than him.”

Host: The moonlight spread wide across the field, turning the bases white, the dirt silver. The world seemed to exhale. Jeeny reached over and rested a hand on his arm.

Jeeny: “You already are, Jack.”

He looked at her, the faintest flicker of warmth in his eyes.

Jack: “Maybe. But sometimes I still wish I could tell him that I get it now. That I understand.”

Jeeny: “He knows.”

Host: Her voice carried softly into the wind, dissolving into the night air. Jack leaned back, staring at the stars—the same sky his father must have stared at years ago, from another bench, another life.

And for a long moment, the world felt small, and love—flawed, rough, unspoken—felt infinite.

The camera would pull back now, slowly, showing two figures on an empty field, surrounded by the vastness of silence and memory.

Jack raised the bottle in a quiet toast to the night.

Jack: “To the dads who never said much, but meant everything.”

Jeeny: “And to the sons who finally learned how to listen.”

Host: The wind swept through the grass, bending it like a soft bow to time itself. The stars burned steady, sharp, and eternal above them. And in that quiet, shimmering dark, the truth lingered gently—
that a role model is not perfection,
but presence.
And sometimes, the greatest legacy is not in the words spoken,
but in the silence left behind.