Whit Waide and Tate Reeves, state treasurer at the time, were having problems. The Medicaid program was running out of money, and they desperately needed an emergency appropriation. Waide, not too far removed from law school, and Reeves, who was elected at the age of 29, were two of the youngest people at the Capitol that day, and they could barely get a word in with legislators. 
They finally heard the house go into session over the intercom system that blasted through the hallways. Waide was relieved.
“Things were getting serious over there” Waide said he remembered thinking: “Granny may be without her oxygen tanks.”
Instead of the emergency appropriation, however, a debate began on whether or not to make hunting a constitutional right in the state.
Waide was furious.
He knew that was it. The five years in the court system had worn him down. Eager to find another way to contribute to society, Waide saw no other option than to uproot his life in Jackson and relocate 125 miles northeast on Highway 25 to Starkville.
“I left Jackson with my friends thinking I had lost my mind, I sold my house; I sold a bunch of stuff,” he said. “It was very unsettling.”
He was going to teach political science at Mississippi State University, something he had wanted to do since he was a child. He said he lost sight of this dream while attending Millsaps. He had originally planned to pursue a doctorate after graduating, but after repeated warnings from professors saying this venture would be a waste of time, Waide caved and chose law school.
“Mainly I did it because I thought life would be like a John Grisham novel and that I would make a shit ton of money, and that was dumb,” he said.
For Waide, being a professor was an opportunity to show students how broken the world really is. College experiences coupled with time as an attorney gave him a desire to advise young minds on how to navigate through, he said. And coming from a long line of poor Irish farmers that had, in recent decades, settled just 20 miles from Starkville in West Point, Waide saw no place better to accomplish this than Mississippi State.
“State to me was always kind of this shining city on the hill,” he said. “It kind of, to me, represented a lot of things I wanted to do.”
Even so, Waide admits the transition was the hardest thing he has ever done and said despite his love for the university, he questioned his decision for a year or two.
Today, Waide is past those questions, and his passion for everything maroon is all but subtle. His office can be overwhelming. A football sits on his desk, along with a small oscillating fan and a slew of papers. Flags hang from the ceiling, a poster of Anthony Dixon hurdling an Ole Miss defender rests on a coffee table next to me and there are, of course, the books. The books are everywhere. The seven-foot-tall bookshelf is crammed full, and nearly every other available surface is stacked with the overflow. He fancies himself a “book farmer.”
Waide also has a deep desire to write. Besides writing his own textbook (one that he hopes to update soon), Waide is in the process of writing “Mythassippi”with fellow professor Bryan Shoup. The book will cover parts of Mississippi history most people, according to Waide, have no knowledge of. Specifically the enormous Irish influence Waide feels is overlooked.
“The University Press of Mississippi is interested in the project, so this is less of a pipe dream than some of my other ideas,” he said.
In 2006, Waide read an interview with Morgan Freeman in Vanity Fair. In the interview, Freeman expressed an interest in playing Bass Reeves, one of the first black men to be deputized as a United States Marshal, on the silver screen
“He was one of the guys known for taming the West,” Waide said. “And, of course, nobody knows this, but he was the model for the Lone Ranger character, who you realize is white.”
After reading the interview, he drove to his office and spent the entire weekend writing a script, sleeping under his desk when he wasn’t writing. The next week he tweaked it a bit, and sent it out to Freeman’s agent and everywhere else he could think of. There were no promising responses.
“I was pissed,” Waide said. “So, I got in the car and drove to Charleston.”
South Carolina, that is. He made his way to Freeman’s home, stuffed the script into a plastic grocery bag and tossed the bag over the fence.
Waide said he thought, “Man, Morgan Freeman will be out there riding horses, and he will see this and wonder what the hell it is, pick it up and I’ll make my movie and a million dollars, and I’ll give half of it to State.”
And he would too. The man loves MSU and Starkville with a ferocity most reserve for a child or maybe a significant other. Just ask one of his 6,108 followers on Twitter.
Waide said he never intended on gathering a cult following, but it has certainly worked out that way. He entered the Twitterverse like most have, with two intentions: follow celebrities, and build a personalized news wire.
“I was on a plane with a guy who was from New Orleans, and he was laughing at the Saints he was following, so I asked him what it was,” Waide said. “That was the first time I had heard of it.”
That was in 2008. Almost four years later, Waide is the unofficial voice of the Bulldogs, whose rants are both infamous and famous, depending on who you ask.
Twitter has been the vehicle for a grass roots movement in the MSU community, he said.
“When someone tweets at Scott (Stricklin) and asks him when the Dog Walk is, and he tweets back, all of a sudden 14,000 fans know exactly when and where the players will walk to the stadium,” Waide said. “That’s amazing to me.”
Nowhere is this more evident, than the “Grindin'”campaign. Taken from a post-game quote from Dixon, Waide saw “Grindin’ for My State” as a chance to bring the entire MSU community together. The phrase has gone from obscure reference to battle cry and unofficial slogan in two short years. All of this, thanks to Twitter.
“If I had to point to the one thing that makes (Twitter) worthwhile, that’s it,” he said.
Waide said he has been approached everywhere from a train station in Washington D.C. to the beaches in Florida, and everyone says the same thing: “I want you to know that I know who you are and that I am “grindin’ for my state.'”
And every time, Waide is blown away.
“It was never my intent to put myself out there in this way,” he said. “It just kind of happened like that, and I gradually started feeling an obligation to it.”
He has adjusted to “fame” relatively well, he said. Even though he never intended on acquiring this position, Waide said he considers the audience he is speaking to on a daily basis.
“(Twitter) is just too strong of a tool and too useful for me to just sort of abandon it now, because I have too many people reading it,” he said.
Waide has brought MSU together in ways he could have never imagined. His popularity, much like his career change, was never in his plans, but he intends on using it to benefit MSU and Starkville in any way he can. The more followers, the better.