Michael Williams will be named Cal’s athletic director after filling that role on an interim basis for nearly a year, according to multiple sources familiar with the hiring process.

Williams became interim athletic director in June, replacing Sandy Barbour, who was the school’s athletic director for 10 years.

Williams did not confirm or deny Monday that he has been selected for the job. But a source close to the negotiations said a contract agreement has been reached in principle. An announcement could come this week.

“If there’s news, it’s coming out of the chancellor’s office,” Williams said. “If I’m lucky enough to be that person, that’s great. I love serving Cal. I love serving this campus. I think we’ve done a lot of great things in the last 10 months. I’d be happy to keep doing what we’re doing and stay on this trajectory.”

The move comes at a difficult time for Cal athletics. The athletic department was widely criticized in 2013 when NCAA data revealed that the Bears’ football team had the worst graduation rate among the nation’s major-conference universities and that the men’s basketball program had the worst graduation rate in the Pac-12. Barbour left the university in 2014 under scrutiny for those academic shortcomings, taking a similar post with Penn State.

To replace Barbour, Cal formed a search committee tasked with identifying up to three potential candidates for Chancellor Nicholas Dirks to consider. It was rumored that Tom Bowen, athletic director at the University of Memphis, was one of those candidates, along with Williams.

Campus spokesman Dan Mogulof released a statement Monday saying the school is “very close” to making an announcement.

“When the Chancellor launched the search for the next Director of Intercollegiate Athletics at UC Berkeley, he committed to selecting a candidate 'by the middle of the spring,’” Mogulof wrote. “That time has arrived and the University is indeed very close to making an announcement. However, a few details remain and those involved are doing what is necessary to complete the hiring process. In the meantime, our Athletics program is and will remain in excellent hands.”

Williams is not a traditional athletic director. He does not have a long background in front-office athletics. He was a wrestler at Cal, a program that was cut during his time on the team. He went on to have a long and successful career in finance, retiring in 2009 as the vice chair of capital markets for Barclays Global Investors, where he was responsible for more than $1.1 trillion in assets.

Williams is a 1982 UC Berkeley graduate and is vice chair of the UC Berkeley Foundation, a fundraising and advisory body that supports academic and athletic endeavors at the university. Williams was also a member of Dirks’ task force on academics in athletics, a fact-finding body tasked with improving Cal athletics’ academic performance that released a 109-page report at the end of September.

Among its recommendations, the task force suggested raising the academic requirements for athletes accepted at Cal.

Head football coach Sonny Dykes said Thursday that it’s “unbelievably important” for him to have a good relationship with the school’s next athletic director. He spoke highly of Williams, based on his role as the interim athletic director.

“Mike’s been great,” Dykes said. “I’ve enjoyed working with him.”

Williams will travel to Phoenix this week for the Pac-12 meetings, which will include athletic directors and coaches.

Mike Vernon is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. E-mail: mvernon@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @M_Vernon