The cultural critic Touré is used to covering pop culture and interviewing some of the biggest names in hip-hop.
Now the New York writer and TV personality is going where no man has gone before — playing football with a hard-hitting Tucson women's football team.
"It gave me a new appreciation for football, after a life of watching it," said Touré, host of the new reality TV show "I'll Try Anything Once."
The 13-part series — to premiere in February 2008 — is being produced by the Dish Network's Treasure HD channel, the satellite network's high-definition channel.
The show features Touré taking on various challenges around the country, such as training to become a rodeo clown and a movie stuntman, and being a part of a demolition-derby team.
His latest challenge was to play in an exhibition game with the Tucson Monsoon, a three-year-old team in the Independent Women's Football League.
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The Monsoon played against the New Mexico Menace Saturday night at Tucson High Magnet School, but the local team lost, 13-12.
"We fought, though. I could feel the tremendous effort from everyone," Touré said.
Touré, who has written three books, is currently the host of BET's "The Black Carpet," an entertainment news show, and is a contributing editor at Rolling Stone.
He served as CNN's first pop-culture correspondent and has made appearances on numerous news magazine shows.
"I'll Try Anything Once" is appealing because it was pitched like "an intellectual version of 'Jackass' but without all the crazy stuff," Touré said.
"It's mostly about getting into people's lives and being a bit more anthropological about it and asking why people do this or that," Touré said.
After searching for a women's football team to profile, producers choose the Tucson Monsoon because the team had a certain cachet, said Liz Hazel, an assistant producer for the show.
"We were taken with the team name, with Arizona, with Tucson and, of course, the weather in October," she said.
After Touré's arrival last week, Gary Chavez, defensive coordinator for the Monsoon, reassembled the team for the film crews. The Monsoon's normal game schedule is from April to June.
For about three days, Chavez worked with Touré on tackles, pass routines and offensive moves and paired him with wingback Diana Benson, who served as a football mentor.
"I thought it was an interesting concept, to have a guy come out and experience women's football," said Benson, a captain with the Tucson Fire Department. "I'm excited about the publicity. . . . Hopefully it will help build a local fan base and hopefully bring more notoriety to the whole" Independent Women's Football League.
Founded in 2000, the IWFL currently has more than 1,000 women playing on 30 teams across the country, according to the league's Web site.
Touré said he hopes the show also will shed light on women football players.
"This was probably the third-scariest thing I've done," he said. "The first was being in a demolition derby, and the second was jumping off a two-story building (while) training as a movie stuntman.
"But it never occurred to me not to think it wasn't hard-hitting football," Touré said. "Some people think, 'Oh, it's going to be all powder-puffy or flag football-ish. Well, it's not. . . . I imagine most women don't have the stomach for it, but most men don't have the stomach to play football, either."
