Growing up in New Orleans, it didn’t take long for Omar Khan to realize his path to the NFL wouldn’t come as a player.

“When I was running around that football field and I realized I wasn’t as good of an athlete as everyone else on that field, I’d better change courses,” Khan said. “Maybe not try to be Archie Manning but try to be Jim Finks.”

Thanks to that self awareness, plus plenty of hard work and patience, Khan reached the top of an organizational food chain this week when he was named the Pittsburgh Steelers general manager. Khan, 45, was introduced at a news conference Friday at UPMC Rooney Sports Complex.

After spending 26 years in the NFL and 21 with the Steelers, including the past five as vice president of football and business administration, Khan will get his first taste of running a franchise. It’s the culmination of a dream that began about the same time he realized that while he didn’t have the skills to throw the ball like Manning, he could use his brains to become a long-tenured front office executive like Finks.

He credits his parents — immigrants who married and raised three children in New Orleans — with a strong work ethic and willingness to let him chase his dreams.

“They are the ones who had to listen to an 8-, 9-, 10-, 12-, 14-year-old kid tell them he didn’t want to be a lawyer, didn’t want to be an engineer, didn’t want to be a doctor, teacher, policeman or fireman,” Khan said. “All he wanted to do was work in the National Football League, become a general manager and win a bunch of Super Bowls.”

As the Steelers’ lead contract negotiator and salary cap expert, Khan has been part of two championship teams, but a Lombardi Trophy hasn’t been added to the trophy case since after the 2008 season. To end that drought, Khan has begun the process of restructuring the front office, primarily in the personnel department.

Mt. Lebanon native Andy Weidl was hired from the Philadelphia Eagles to become assistant general manager, a newly created title. Khan also added former Detroit Lions executive Sheldon White as pro scouting director, a role previously held by Brandon Hunt. The role of former general manager Kevin Colbert remains undetermined, but his son, Dan, has been promoted from scout to college scouting director. Hunt reportedly is leaving the Steelers to join the Philadelphia Eagles.

Khan doesn’t have the scouting background of his predecessor, but he said he plans to be involved in all phases of the Steelers operation.

“I’m confident in saying I’ve touched every aspect of football operations, some more than others,” Khan said. “Every good leader understands his strengths and weaknesses. … Every good leader surrounds himself with people who are going to help him succeed, and that is my plan.”

Team president Art Rooney II selected Khan from an initial field of 16 candidates that was whittled to six for a second round of interviews.

“Obviously, we picked the guy we know very well,” Rooney said. “I think it will be a very smooth transition.”

A Tulane graduate, Khan worked with his hometown NFL team for five seasons and never envisioned leaving. A phone call from the Steelers in 2001 changed his outlook.

“An opportunity to work for the Rooneys, I wasn’t going to pass it up,” Khan said.

In his two decades in Pittsburgh, Khan met and married his wife. He and Kristen Khan have two young daughters, and they were by his side at the news conference.

He admittedly has more yinzer than bayou in his blood these days.

“This is where I want to be,” he said. “I’m a Western Pennsylvania person.”

Khan had a handful of interviews for general manager positions over the past decade. In hindsight, it worked out in his favor that he didn’t land any of those vacancies.

“This is the dream job for me,” he said. “It’s the one I’ve always wanted, and it wasn’t available.”

Khan said his experience of interviewing elsewhere taught him patience while he waited for Rooney to make his decision. But that didn’t keep his emotions from spilling out when Rooney summoned Khan into his office earlier this week.

“I tried controlling myself from smiling too much,” he said. “I was very, very — I was thrilled. It was a dream come true. I actually gave him a hug on the way out.”

Khan broke the good news to Kristen and then his parents. The son of a Honduran mother and Indian father, he had made good on his lifelong dream. A first-generation American, Khan learned to love football from his father. Yet, when he would rattle off the names of his favorite Saints players, his father would counter with other NFL greats, including many from the Steelers.

“He used to tell me about this guy Joe Greene and Franco Harris,” he said. “It’s ironic that, fast forward, I ended up in Pittsburgh because I’ve been hearing about those guys — Lynn Swann — he loved great players and the great teams.”

Now, Khan will be tasked with constructing the next one in Steelers history.

“I’m confident that time will show this was the right decision for the franchise,” he said.

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