NEW YORK — Rashaan Salaam, a former running back who won the Heisman Trophy in 1994, was found dead Monday in Colorado. He was 42.

Mr. Salaam’s body was discovered in a parking lot at Eben G. Fine Park in Boulder, said Shannon Cordingly, a spokeswoman for the Boulder Police Department.

She said the cause of death was unknown and was being investigated. Cordingly said there were no signs of foul play.

Rashaan Iman Salaam was born Oct. 8, 1974, in San Diego. He was the son of Sulton Salaam, formerly known as Harold Washington, a onetime Cincinnati Bengals running back who went by Teddy.

Mr. Salaam was a star athlete in high school at La Jolla Country Day School and a highly sought-after college football recruit. He went on to play for the University of Colorado, where he won the Heisman Trophy.

“Rashaan will be remembered as one of the greatest football players to ever wear a Buffs uniform, and his 1994 Heisman Trophy brought great prestige and honor to the university,’’ Philip P. DiStefano, the chancellor of the University of Colorado, said in a statement. “We send our deepest condolences to his family and friends.’’

Mr. Salaam was a first-round selection in the 1995 NFL draft by the Chicago Bears, with whom he played three seasons. He became the youngest NFL player to rush for 1,000 yards in a season, according to a biography on the Bears’ website.

He played for the Cleveland Browns in 1999 and also briefly for the Green Bay Packers and the San Francisco 49ers, although not in any regular-season games.

He also briefly played for the Memphis Maniax in the short-lived XFL, and for the Canadian Football League’s Toronto Argonauts.

But his promising professional career was cut short by injuries, fumbles, and marijuana use, which he reflected on in an interview with The Chicago Tribune.

“I had no discipline. I had all the talent in the world,’’ Mr. Salaam told the Tribune in 2012. “You know, great body, great genes. But I had no work ethic and I had no discipline. The better you get, the harder you have to work. The better I got, the lazier I got.’’

In his life before he reached the Chicago Bears, he said, “everything was perfect.’’

Mr. Salaam told the Tribune that he was “a bachelor for life’’ and spent the years after his departure from professional sports running a camp for young athletes in San Diego. Information on his survivors was not immediately available.