Cleveland Browns training camp opened on Aug. 1 and Lennie Friedman didn’t care.

There were no heart palpitations. No sweaty palms. No feelings of remorse and no second thoughts and no yearning for a final moment in the Berea, Ohio, sun. As old offensive line chums like Hank Fraley and Ryan Tucker and Joe Thomas slammed into one another as if they were performing some sort of water buffalo mating ritual, Friedman thought to himself … well, nothing. Not. One. Tiny. Thing.

“Forgot it was taking place,” he says. “Honest to goodness.”

The oversight is understandable. Friedman, a 32-year-old New Jersey native who recently announced his retirement after a four-team, eight-year NFL career, is now a first-year MBA student at Duke, pursuing his goal of one day becoming an entrepreneur. Though football occ asionally pops into his head, it lingers for as long as a Shannon Hoon solo — usually tailed off by the thought, “Thank God I’m done.”

His odds of returning to the league? “I’d place it at negative 1,000,” he says. “Maybe more.”

Friedman is anything but bitter. Thanks to the NFL, the former second-round pick out of Duke is financially secure and emotionally content. He lived a dream, and reflects glowingly at past battles with men like Joey Porter and Shawne Merriman. Yet there is also this thing called … life. For eight years, Lennie Friedman did exactly as he was told. He arrived at this time. Ate this meal. Did this drill and that drill, then lifted this weight this many times before spending this many minutes in a bucket of ice water. Such is the oft-banal existence of the paid athlete, where active brain waves are optional and existence’s irksome realities — doctor appointments, dinner reservations, rental cars — are neatly handled by others.

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