I answered, yes in a heartbeat. Jeff is the recently retired punter for the Los Angeles raiders and a long time friend of mine. In fact, he and I played baseball together at Eastern Illinois University and both signed to go on and play professional baseball.

I was very excited to attend the hunt because being an ex-baseball player myself, I thought it was a great thing and an excellent idea to raise money for the baseball program and Scholarships for young men wanting to further their education.  

Bill Gilbreath is the coach for ACU and one big reason for the success the program has experienced over the past years.  Bill pitched at ACU twenty-five years ago and was raised in Abilene.  He had an excellent fastball that put him in the major leagues with the California Angels and Detroit Tigers.  While with the Angels, Bill met another young Texan ballplayer by the name of Nolan Ryan. They hit it off immediately and remained friends over the years. At the time Bill did not know the impact their friendship would have on the Abilene Christian baseball program.  

The Abilene baseball program had been dropped for a period of eleven years and Gilbreath wanted to bring baseball back to his alma mater.  There was no money for a baseball program or Scholarships, so Gilbreath started a few fund raisers. After a year and a half of fund raising that produced little of nothing, Bill  was a little frustrated to say the least.  

As a last ditch effort, Bill and Gary McCaleb, a vice president for Abilene Christian, contacted Nolan Ryan. The threesome got together for lunch. Ryan listened to Gilbreath explain how all the fund raising efforts had gotten no where and how the baseball program was in dire need of a miracle.

The three of them came up with an idea  to establish the Nolan Ryan fund for baseball at the university.   
They put together a $100.00 a plate dinner honoring Nolan's great career.  The Texas Rangers mailed banquet notices to its season ticket holders and in a short time, had 620 reservations.  By the time the banquet was sold out, they had raised an estimated $250,000.  

The annual Celebrity Quail hunt has been going for three years. Gilbreath said the first year of the hunt they had two paying hunters, the second year there were 27 hunters that paid, and this year they had a total of 28 hunters.  The hunt that I went on raised $28,000 plus and additional $11,000 that was raised at the auction they had the night before the quail hunt.

Today the Abilene Christian baseball program is successful.  They  have a new baseball facility that is awesome,  Jim Anglea, who is the groundskeeper for the Texas Rangers, came out and assisted Gilbreath putting in the impressive new field.  Without the assistance of Nolan Ryan, Gilbreath said it would have  taken two or three years to complete the diamond.

The Celebrity Quail Hunt was a great event.  The first day, paying hunters shot a round of sporting clays with all the celebrities.  Plus, there was an all you could eat barbecue.  The evening consisted of the celebrity hunters signing autographs.(Nolan Ryan was in that elite group.) The second day was the quail hunt and it was fantastic. There was an over abundance of quail and also  pheasants and chuckers to challenge your shooting skills. To say fun was had by all would be an understatement.

I was extremely impressed with the whole event.  It was amazing how a lot of the local people chipped in to help Coach Gilbreath with various duties to insure the whole event ran smoothly.

Bill Gilbreath is very sincere  and hard working man.  It  is hard to put into words what he has accomplished with the baseball program.  The baseball facilities are top notch.

The scholarship money that has been raised enabling student-athletes to receive an education and further their professional careers is a feat in it self.  It is hard to believe that it was a few years ago when there was not a baseball program at Abilene Christian University.  It just goes to show all of us what can happen when people help people.

AUTHOR NOTES:  ANYONE INTERESTED IN THE 1996 ANNUAL CELEBRITY QUAIL HUNT CAN CONTACT BILL GILBREATH AT 915-674-2325