Alex? Alec? or Elec?

• By CARL DUBOIS
• Advocate sportswriter
• Published: May 11, 2008 - Page: 4A - UPDATED: 12:05 a.m.

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For years, LSU announcers Bill Franques and Jim Hawthorne pronounced Alex Box Stadium as spelled, enunciating the “x” in each of the first two words.

In the 1990s, that changed.

Simeon Alexander Box, the former LSU athlete the stadium was after, was called something closer to “Alec” or “Elec” by family members, the announcers learned.

Neal Box, a younger brother of Alex who died in 1996, explained the pronunciation in the early ’90s, Hawthorne said.

What Hawthorne heard sounded much like the informal name for the central Louisiana city of Alexandria, a nickname with a casual, country ring to it.

Alex Box, 63, the nephew and namesake of the former LSU baseball and football player, said he used to hear it that way, too. He was raised by his grandmother — the late Alex Box’s mother.

“My uncle Neal pronounced my name almost like it was ‘E-l-e-c,’” he said. “That’s just the way it came out.”

Neal’s son, Bobby, is 55 and lives in Baton Rouge. He remembers hearing his grandmother snap off his cousin’s name far differently than it is spelled.

“I can hear her: ‘C’mere, Elec!’ Just like that. ‘Elec. Elec!’ She didn’t say Alex,” Bobby Box said.

The younger Alex grew up in Laurel, Miss. Some of his teachers remembered his uncle, and he always heard them pronounce the first name as spelled. To this day, he says his name as they did, as it appears in print: Alex Box.

“There’s no question it’s Alex,” he said, sounding the ‘x’ clearly, “but it’s really not that big a deal.”

He said he has no problem with people saying “Alec” or “Elec.”

“I just think it’s much ado about nothing,” he said, “but some people get bent out of shape about it, and there’s no reason for that.”