As a young girl Judy Sweet loved sports. She often played pickup games of basketball, football and more with her two older brothers and the other kids from the neighborhood after school and on weekends. It was really her only option if she wanted to be a participant in those sports. The 53rd Street Elementary School on Milwaukee’s north side where she attended offered many sports for their students; but all of them, unfortunately for her and the other girls, were only for the boys.

That modus operandi may have been the accepted system in elementary schools back in the ‘50s and earlier, but Sweet never accepted it. She felt the system was absolutely unfair for her and all other girls. And as young as she was, she vowed to do something about it some day.

Just about all of us make vows of one kind or another when we’re young. I, for example, resolved to become a Major League pitcher when I grew up. And probably 99 and nine tenths of such intentions are quickly forgotten or never come to pass, as with mine. Not so, however, with Sweet. Starting with her own truly remarkable accomplishments as a female in a virtually all-male world of sports, on through to her lifelong toils and endeavors for all women in athletics, she has become one of the - perhaps even the - leading advocate for women’s equality in sports this country has ever known.

When she was born, her parents, Sam and Ann Sweet, named her Judith Ann, but almost from day one, everyone called her Judy. She prefers that even today. She went on to attend the old John Marshall High School in Milwaukee. Her grades were always excellent, nearly all A’s, which enabled her to earn a scholarship to the University of Wisconsin in Madison. While in high school, she was able to participate in a few sports such as badminton, but it was always on an intramural basis (intramural: existing within the bounds of an institution). This was a little better than elementary school, but not much.

At the University of Wisconsin, she continued her fine work in the classroom and graduated with honors in 1969. “I majored in physical education,” she said, “because it was the only area available then to women who had an interest in sports.” At the UW, she wasn’t able to join any women’s team primarily because her academic and extracurricular work took up all of her available time. She did, however, became more and more involved in the administrative area of women’s sports, as she served as the president of the UW Women’s Recreation Association, as well as president of the National Athletic and Recreation Federation of College Women. “It was more than just the lack of time,” she said. “I realized early on that my athletic skills were not good enough to compete on the college level, and that my future in sports was in coaching and administration.”

After graduating from UW-Madison, Sweet went on to earn a Masters in Education, again with honors, from the University of Arizona in Tucson and an MBA from National University in San Diego.

Her career was on its way.

After teaching and coaching at Tulane and Arizona for a couple of years, Sweet joined the athletic department staff at the University of California in San Diego. Incredibly, after only a few years she was named as the school’s Director of Athletics. This was a momentous move as she had become the first woman to head a combined men and women’s intercollegiate athletics program at a major university in the entire nation. Not only that, she was still in her 20s. During her 24-year tenure there, UCSD teams won 26 National Championships and, in 1998, she received the Sears Directors Cup for having the most successful athletic program in Division III. The University of California in San Diego is not a small school, by any means. With an enrollment of more than 25,000, it’s larger than Northwestern University and nearly the size of the University of Iowa.

During Sweet’s time there she also became deeply involved in gender equity and Title IX issues for the NCAA, often speaking before major committees as well as before the US Congress.

Because of all of this, in 1991, she was elected President of the NCAA. This made her the first woman in history to serve in that prestigious position.

Sweet has received more than 40 major honors and awards in her nearly four decades in athletics, including the National Association of Collegiate Women’s Athletic Administration’s Administrator of the Year Award, the Institute for International Sports 100 Most Influential Sports Educators in America and the James Corbett Memorial Award, which is presented annually to the collegiate administrator who “through the years has most typified devotion to intercollegiate athletics and its betterment.” That award has been called the highest honor anyone can achieve in collegiate athletic administration.

Since her retirement four years ago, Sweet has served as a consultant for Title IX and Gender Equity Strategies for colleges and universities all over the country, and is also a frequent speaker on those issues, even before Congressional committees. She currently lives in San Diego.

In November, Sweet received the Wisconsin Athletic Hall of Fame award. Her inclusion in the Hall of Fame in itself is quite commendable, but it also gives further evidence that women in athletics are still very much in the minority. Of the 135 individuals inducted into the Hall since its inception 60 years ago, only eight, including Sweet, are women. Up until 1993, in fact, no women had been named to the Hall. Financial benefactor Jane Pettit and speed skater Diane Holum were the first to be inducted that year. Other women who have been named since then include Bonnie Blair in 1995, Shirley Martin in 1998, Janis Doleschal in 1999, Connie Carpenter in 2001 and Beth Heiden-Reid in 2005. That is only eight out of 135, which, incidentally, is less than six percent.

Obviously the Hall can’t simply correct this imbalance. But nevertheless, it should be noted that there have been many women in sports, both in Wisconsin and across the country, who have been overlooked over the years. For example, following World War II, Wisconsin had some of the top female bowlers in the entire country, superstars such as Jean Bopp, Jane Leszczynski and Vicki Vukovich, to name but a few.

The other recipients named to the Wisconsin Athletic Hall of Fame in November along with Sweet were Barry Alvarez, Bob Harlan, Lee Kemp, Ab Nicholas, John Powless and Pat Richter. All were high in praise of Sweet and her accomplishments. Richter, a former UW and NFL football star and UW Athletic Director, said, “To begin with, she’s part of the UW family like we are, which makes us doubly proud of her.” But even more, she was an absolutely tremendous athletic director out in San Diego. Her record speaks for itself.”

Powless, a former UW basketball coach and current senior world tennis champion, added, “Judy is one of the most remarkable women I’ve ever known. She has done more for women’s athletics in America than anyone, ever. Hundreds of thousands, maybe millions of women across the country owe her their thanks. Her inclusion in the Wisconsin Athletic Hall of Fame is long overdue.”