Jonathan Isaac, ten-year NBA veteran and self-described Minister of Defense, walked into a mansion in Orlando, Florida, carrying a gift box containing a pair of his own Christian footwear brand’s signature sneakers for a guy he had never met before. The sneakers were the Unitus Judu Mighty Warrior, engraved with Judges 6:12, and they were handed over moments before the two of them squared off on an indoor basketball court with half its lights burned out. That detail alone captures what made this trip strange, generous, and genuinely entertaining: three sports Airbnbs, each more elaborate than the last, and a professional athlete waiting at every one of them.
Eagle Cove in Orlando sets the opening tone
The first stop was Eagle Cove, a modern luxury mansion in Orlando large enough to sleep around 40 people. Before any competition started, the property demanded a full tour. A three-game commercial-grade arcade room sits off the kitchen, followed by a full-length two-lane bowling alley stocked with shoes in every size. A private movie room with pre-folded blankets on every seat leads to an indoor hot tub and a sauna. Past a small gym is the main event: an indoor basketball court complete with an upstairs viewing window that feels like club seats at an actual arena. Outside, the pool stretches to resort scale, with a sunken poolside bar, a bridge, a lazy river, a water slide operated by a wall button, and a poolside basketball hoop. A short-game golf hole is tucked into the property with a $1,000 hole-in-one offer that went uncollected.
When Isaac arrived, he immediately pushed the game toward underhand free throws and a full Dr. J hook shot before offering a deal: make a dunk on the regulation basket and the whole game is forfeited in the challenger’s favor. Isaac put the dunk down first to settle it himself. As he put it after one particularly theatrical move: ‘I kind of want to take you up to see if there’s a dunk in you.’
Asheville and San Diego raise the stakes considerably
The second property, a 14,000-square-foot estate tucked into the mountains outside Asheville, North Carolina, requires a four-wheel-drive vehicle just to reach it. The sports features run from an outdoor par-three golf course with a real scoreboard to a bowling alley, a golf simulator, a billiards room, a full movie theater, and a recovery room with a massage chair and sauna. Waiting inside the man cave was Matt Turk, a 19-season NFL punter, who wore number 67 to honor his late brother and former teammate Dan Turk, who passed away in 2000. Their competition was the Oklahoma drill: one ball carrier, one tackler, two rounds. It did not last two rounds.
The final property sits on 15 acres in San Diego, California, and holds a five-star rating across 139 reviews. The scale made it difficult to capture even by drone. The sports on offer included mini golf, a par-three course longer than the one in Asheville, a full baseball field with batting cage, a soccer net, shuffleboard, horseshoe toss, volleyball, and a foot-pool hybrid that nobody could quite name. The pro was Jake Reed, who pitched for the Dodgers, the Mets, and the Orioles, and the challenge was simple: ten pitches, one chance at a home run. Nine pitches produced swings and misses, a tip, and enough comedic commentary to fill a highlight reel. The tenth pitch settled it.
The tip on pitch five
The moment that briefly stopped the San Diego competition came on pitch five, when the bat caught just enough of the ball to produce an audible tick. The batter’s celebration was immediate and completely out of proportion to the contact made, which probably tells you everything about how the at-bat was going up to that point.
By the final pitch of the trip, Jake Reed had his glove on and his Bible verse ready. On every glove he used during his professional career, he wrote Romans 8:39.
