The 55-year-old Penn Stater who got Olbermann suspended

Lisa Aiello DeLeon just wanted to show Keith Olbermann that there was more to Pennsylvania State University than the Jerry Sandusky scandal.

When she read that the university's annual Thon dance marathon had raised more than $13 million over the weekend for pediatric cancer research, she thought of the ESPN host.

"We are!" she tweeted Monday, mentioning Olbermann and the Thon article, and using part of the school athletic cheer.

But Olbermann finished the sentence for her, replying:

" . . . Pitiful".

Thus began a social-media rant by the ESPN talker against Penn State that included this declaration: "PSU students are pitiful because they're PSU students - period."

On Tuesday, ESPN announced it had suspended Olbermann for the rest of the week and called his comments "completely inappropriate."

"I was just trying to educate him," said DeLeon, 55, who graduated from Penn State in 1982 with a mechanical engineering degree.

The mother of two, speaking from Powell, Ohio, Tuesday afternoon, said she was stunned by Olbermann's tweets and hoped that the famously combative commentator's suspension would help him "lighten up a little bit."

But why did she did think of Olbermann in the first place?

In late January, DeLeon watched a video of Olbermann condemning the "disgraceful restoration" by the NCAA of 112 football wins that had been stripped during the Sandusky child sex-abuse scandal. The decision made Joe Paterno again the winningest Division I football coach ever.

DeLeon tweeted a link to a rebuttal posted on Onward State, a site dedicated to Penn State news: "@KeithOlbermann silent on this? Nailed you."

To her surprise, Olbermann tweeted back: "You're quoting a penn state fanboy site. The only person who got nailed was that bastard Paterno."

She replied with an expression of shock: "wow just wow. Truth in facts - not a fanboy site. You're living proof you can't argue w stupid!"

Olbermann did not reply again after that January exchange.

DeLeon said she was neither an Olbermann hater nor a fan, but was taken aback by his broadcast comments that Penn State supporters believe football "is still more important than saving kids and healing their wounds."

She said she had participated in Thon as a freshman in 1979 and thought the news about the philanthropic haul would help Olbermann see a different side of the university.

If Olbermann did reply to her Monday tweet, she said, she expected that he might simply say, "Whatever," and otherwise ignore her.

Olbermann wrote that he did not click the link to open the Thon fund-raising story, but said that was irrelevant.

In his rants that followed, he ridiculed several Penn State supporters for typographic errors and for their continued loyalty, and declared: "I'd like to thank the students and alums of Penn State for proving my point about the mediocrity of their education and ethics."

DeLeon, who has two siblings who also are Penn State alumni, wondered about the reaction of her two nephews, who are students in Happy Valley.

"They probably didn't realize I could use a smartphone," she said.

She joined Twitter as @lisaadeleon about a year ago after getting her first iPhone and said she joined the social-media service only to track information related to basketball scholarships for one of her sons.

During her interview with an Inquirer reporter, she gained one Twitter follower, raising her total to 41.

Olbermann has more than 537,000.

Tuesday afternoon, the suspended host returned to Twitter to "apologize for the PSU tweets. I was stupid and childish and way less mature than the students there who did such a great fund-raising job."

215-854-5983 @RobertMoran215