NC State grad makes living with voice you've probably heard

RALEIGH, N.C. (WTVD) -- When he first got to NC State, Donovan Corneetz had plans.

"I was actually a bio major trying to be a chiropractor," he told ABC11.

His foray into campus radio would soon alter that timeline. One of his instructors brought up the world of voiceover work and Corneetz was smitten.

"That was it. I caught the bug and the first time getting paid to do it? Oh my goodness. I said this is it, there's no other option in life for me," Corneetz recalled.

Since then, he's devoted his life to perfecting his craft. It's much more complex than just having a good voice. You must practice mastering it and manufacturing mood.

"Not only to know what tone to use but getting there and being able to switch gears, because sometimes I'm doing a commercial, then I'm doing a promo maybe for a sports read, and then immediately after that it's dramatic and then after that it's a comedy read, and they're all different attitudes, different emotions," Corneetz explained. "Steph Curry makes all those shots because he doesn't think about each shot -- it's muscle memory. It's kind of the same thing for me."

Corneetz has since made a successful career. He was the voice of college football on ESPN for a year, Monday Night Football and even found international fame for his work on the Walking Dead video game.

"What ended up happening is I started getting 13-year-old kids from Germany asking for my autograph, buying 8x10 glossies. That was kind of like, what?" Corneetz said.

For the past five to six years he's also been the voice of his alma mater.

"It kind of renders me speechless sometimes because it's just so cool to have started literally in a dorm bathroom doing voiceovers to being heard in Carter-Finley with, you know, thousands of people. It's so cool to still continue to be a part of my alma mater," he said.

Corneetz likes to joke that he makes a pretty good living for a guy who talks to himself in a padded room.