In June 1991 the Knoxville Journal requested an April 4, 1990, audit report dealing with the relationship of Athletics Director Doug Dickey and his wife JoAnne, who owned a Shaklee distributorship, to the UT Athletics Department. The audit, prepared by UT auditor Richard Boring, indicated that Coach Dickey had learned from his staff that he could not personally sell Shaklee products to UT, so he approached Rick Williams, a former student athlete at UT who had used the products and suggested to Wilkinson that he might want to submit a bid for the products to the university. From 1987 until April 1990, the Dickeys supplied Shaklee products to Wilkinson, who then sold them to UT. Wilkinson indicated that after the operation had commenced, he wanted out and began bidding the cost of the drink exorbitantly high—his bid shot up $7 in two years—hoping that UT would not accept his bid, but they did. In a footnote at the bottom of page 4, the report states: “The purchase orders actually show annual increases in price from $13.40 in 1987 to $20.50 in 1989. The discrepancy between the price quoted and the price paid occurred apparently because Wilkinson submitted the bids but JoAnne Dickey prepared the invoices for him to send to UT. Wilkinson apparently did not tell JoAnne Dickey about his higher bids and also did not check her pricing on the invoices before submitting them to UT.”
The audit concluded that the arrangement did represent a conflict of interest. Boring’s recommendations were that the contract with Wilkinson be terminated and that UT employees be asked to sign statements disclosing their outside commercial interests. The contract with Wilkinson was terminated, and a process for disclosure of outside interests was put into place. No action was taken against Dickey because, according to Vice President for Business and Finance Emerson Fly, no evidence was found that Dickey meant to hurt UT and no UT funds were lost. At an August press conference, Dickey apologized for the embarrassment the Shaklee issue had caused.