Andra Douglas
Athlete | Artist | Author
"My work and my life are about empowerment. My goal is to bring creativity, intelligence, and strength to everything I do."
CEO of ampliFLY Entertainment
Founder of Fins Up Foundation
Former Quarterback of NY Sharks
Member of Pro Football Hall of Fame
Former Owner of NY Sharks
Author & Artist
Former Executive in Entertainment Industry
Biography
As CEO of ampliFLY Entertainment, an artist of mixed media paintings, a national champion athlete, the author of Black & Blue: Love, Sports and the Art of Empowerment, and Changing Cadence: Friendship, Football and the Art of Transition, Andra strives to inspire and empower women and girls who have been told "no, you can’t" but are determined to do it anyway.
Her experience with all aspects of sports, and specifically women’s football, serves as one of the main subjects of her mixed media artwork which has been exhibited nationwide and is also the inspiration of her novels.
In 2000, she acquired the NY Sharks, a women’s tackle football team and played quarterback for 5 years. After nineteen full seasons of play, Andra sold the team but the New York Sharks retired arguably as the “winningest” and longest operating women’s tackle football team in the world boasting a nineteen season record that includes 10 Division Titles, 5 East Coast Championships, 2 National Titles (2002, 2018) and 1 International Title. (2018)
In 2003, she established the Fins Up Foundation for Female Athletes, a foundation whose mission is to provide opportunities for 13-17 year old “at-risk” girls to learn the sport of football as well as the life skills that come along with it. NY Shark players coach in the camps. In 2015 the Fins Up Foundation merged its programs and goals with the Women's Gridiron Foundation with the intention of expanding the unique Fins Up! Football Camps in cities across the country and the world, as well as offer additional programs to empower and support young girls both on and off the field of play.
Her first book, Black & Blue: Love, Sports and the Art of Empowerment was released in 2019. It touches on her life experience as a non-conforming female growing up in a conservative rural environment, and the subsequent unfurling of her life as an empowered executive and pioneer for women in American football. Universal Television has optioned this story for a series.
In 2023, Andra was honored by the Pro Football Hall of Fame in Canton, Ohio for her contributions and accomplishments in women’s flag and tackle football. Her New York Sharks helmet, pants, and gameday jersey are on display as well as her flag jersey from her time as manager of the inaugural (2008) 5 on 5 Flag Football World Cup, held in Quebec, Canada.
Today, she lives with her parrot, Poi, in New York’s Greenwich Village where she creates mixed-media artwork and she is working on her second book which captures the heartbreaks and thrills of 2018, the final season of the New York Sharks.
