THE SIDELINES : Woman Likely to Lead NCAA

Ten years after a bitterly divided NCAA membership agreed to begin sponsoring women’s championships, Judy Sweet of UC San Diego appears poised to become the NCAA’s first woman president.

Sweet’s election is now being viewed as a virtual certainty. As secretary-treasurer of the NCAA, she already occupies a spot that traditionally has led to the presidency.

The NCAA News, the organization’s weekly newspaper, announced Tuesday that Sweet, athletic director at UC San Diego, had been selected by the NCAA’s nominating committee to succeed Albert Witte of Arkansas as president. The next step would be approval by delegates to the 1991 NCAA convention in January at Nashville, Tenn.

The NCAA president does not carry the same powers as the executive director, Dick Schultz, who directs the 200-person staff in suburban Kansas City. The president runs the annual conventions, which gives the position extensive influence over the ordering of the annual agenda.