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JERSEY CITY -- When training camps around the NFL open in two weeks, it will mark the start of a new season - and Ray Rice's third outside of professional football.

Most know Rice's story. The former Rutgers star was cut by the Baltimore Ravens in 2014 after video surfaced of him punching his then-fiancee, now-wife Janay Rice in an Atlantic City casino in February of that year - an assault he was arrested for.

But while many NFL players have managed to return to the field after high-profile off-field issues, Rice has not. The 29-year-old running back has been unable to find a second chance.

Some say he has been blackballed by the league after commissioner Roger Goodell's handling of Rice's punishment became a high-profile embarrassment for the NFL. Others point to the fact Rice had perhaps begun to decline as a player before the incident, rushing for just 660 yards in 2013.

Rice says he is not letting go of his comeback hopes anytime soon. But, in an interview with NJ Advance Media on Thursday night before playing in Boomer Esiason and Craig Carton's charity softball game at Caven Point, Rice admitted he knows "the window for playing is closing," and he is at peace with the fact he may never play again.

"I'm training, but I'm more training for life," Rice said. "I think it's safe to say that football ... I don't want to ever say I'm giving up, because that's never going to be me ... I'm happy. I'm in the best shape of my life, and I know if it doesn't happen this year, it's probably something I have to deal with. But you know what? It's not the end of my life.

"I know that the window for playing is closing. But if my window closes, I'm going to make sure I open up a thousand more opportunities for kids, to give them an opportunity to pick up where I left off. That's where I'm at. I've got three Pro Bowls and a Super Bowl. There's a lot of people that can't go out there and do what I did. But I don't want it to end that way, it's safe to say."

Rice was recently asked by Rutgers coach Chris Ash to speak to the Scarlet Knights, something he has done several times in recent years. And Rice said he will be "going around to different colleges throughout the summer, telling my whole story," to other teams, as well as mentoring kids.

"It's safe to say football is going to be part of my life," Rice said, "from now until I'm old and gray."

But playing in the NFL again appears very unlikely at this point, as Rice's age and history are very much working against him. And Rice accepts that.

"I have to let the chips fall," Rice said. "Everyone wants to know why (he has not gotten a second chance), and I want to know the same [answer]. I feel like if it's going to happen, it's going to happen. It's not going to be on my terms. It's going to be by the grace of God and my faith, for an owner to just say, 'This guy deserves a second chance.'

"I'm willing to do whatever it takes. I'm not naive of anything that happened in my life. I'm definitely going to continue to take full responsibility for it. We do know it was a national controversy. I'm not hiding from it. I owned everything.

"But I know for a fact I can make a team better, I can make a locker room better. And I know 100 percent that I can make a community better."

Thursday's Esiason-Carton charity softball game, played against Port Authority police officers, raised money for the families of the five police officers recently killed in Dallas.

Esiason said the game was originally going to raise money for the Port Authority PBA Widows' and Children's Fund. (Thirty-seven Port Authority police officers died on 9/11.) But after the Dallas shootings, the Port Authority cops decided to send the money down to Texas, said Esiason.

"I think anybody who is a law-abiding citizen who believes in our police forces and what they do for a living, your heart is broken to see something like that," Esiason said of the officers killed in Dallas. "At the end of the day, no civilized society can have that happen to them."

James Kratch may be reached at jkratch@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on Twitter @JamesKratch. Find our Giants coverage on Facebook.