"I had a great father. He was a good example and did a lot of things with me, coaching my teams and all," he said. He, in turn, has spent time coaching his own children's teams.

The men in the study who felt distant from their fathers mentioned the breadwinner role, yet they rarely mentioned dads as nurturing parents. Instead they spoke about not wanting to be a bad dad.

Comments they shared with researchers showed how some of the subjects developed their own attitudes toward parenting:

"I am scared of me; I am scared of the cycles. A son will treat his children the way he was treated," said 31-year-old Brian.

"It's pretty clear that their relationship with their own father gets carried over into their relationship with their kids," Forste said.

The dads interviewed for this study had children served by a nonprofit agency. Forste trained two male students who were about the same age as the participating dads in how to conduct interviews in a way that put the dads at ease.

Getting them to open up turned out not to be so hard; across the board, these single men said they enjoyed fatherhood, Forste said. And those who felt they couldn't turn to their father as a role model sought other father figures.

"A lot of them talked about coaches, Scout leaders and fathers of friends," Forste said. "They desperately need positive role models and men in their lives. Anybody who works with youth has an opportunity to make a difference."

Paul, 25, who lived with an alcoholic father, said he found a parenting model in his mother.

"I'd say my mom, probably, just because she was always there. My dad would go and drink, and she'd be the one who had to discipline me and talk to me. My mom was the one who helped me out through everything. When I found out I had a kid, it was my mom I turned to."

Jamal, 30, talked about the positive influence of his high school coach in helping him learn to be a good dad.

"I admired how he was raising his son. He was married, and he always brought his son around, like to the track meets, to football. I could talk to him about anything. Sometimes growing up, sometimes you feel like you can't talk to your stepfather or something like that. You've got your coach right there because that's who you're with a lot. So yeah, he was like a father figure."

Stepfathers, grandparents, uncles and brothers also provided good examples for some of the men in the study. Matt, 34, speaking of his stepfather, said:

"He's held the same job for as long as I've known him, and he's always been there. For most of my life I called him dad. That's who I looked up to."