JOE RIMKUS JR./MIAMI HERALD Sarah Hughes, the sister of freshman Matthew Hughes, skates her gold medal-winning program in the Olympics last Thursday.

A few hours before his sister was due to skate, freshman Matthew Hughes started feeling the butterflies in his stomach.

He was in his hotel room in Salt Lake City with the rest of his family on the afternoon of Feb. 21. His 16-year-old sister, Sarah Hughes, was preparing to compete in the women’s figure skating free program later that evening for a chance at winning an Olympic medal. “I was getting really nervous,” he said. “I was sweating through my jacket.”

Then his cell phone rang. Sarah was on the line, asking her brother to tell her a few jokes to calm her nerves.

“I said ‘Jokes? This is no time for jokes!’” he said. “‘You’re about to skate in the free program in the Olympics, and I don’t know any jokes.’”

Hughes had skated well two nights before in the short program and was in fourth place overall. Hughes’ American teammates, Michelle Kwan and Sasha Cohen, were ahead of her, as was Russian Irina Slutskaya. She knew she had a shot at a medal, as long as she skated well in the free program.

“In the short program, I thought she skated really well,” Matthew Hughes said. “A lot of people were upset with her scores, but I kept saying, ‘Don’t worry, she’s going to go out there and knock them all dead and show them what figure skating should always be about.’”

But if his nerves weren’t high enough the morning of the free program, they were through the roof when he arrived at the rink that night for the competition. The arena was packed, and the whole world was watching.

The first few groups of skaters did their programs. None were spectacular enough for a medal. Finally the last group, featuring the top skaters from the short program, was up. Sarah went second and pulled off the greatest feat of her career. She skated her most difficult program ever — and did it flawlessly.

“I started dancing up and down in the aisles, going crazy,” Matthew Hughes said. “I almost killed my next door neighbor, who is like 70 years old, because I was shaking him so hard.”

After his sister skated, Matthew Hughes was scheduled to go to the airport and get on a flight to Ithaca so he could attend classes the next morning. But on his way out of the rink, he saw his father watching a television monitor in a back corridor. He joined him, only to see Cohen fall in her program. It convinced him to stick around. Next was Kwan, who also fell. Finally, Slutskaya skated — a decent program, but not as good as Hughes’ had been.

“All of a sudden, they announce that Sarah has the gold, and my father and I, our jaws just drop, and we froze for about five seconds,” he said. “Finally, we jump in the air and hug each other and ran outside to get my mom, who was nervously waiting in the cold.”

Amy Hughes, their mother, wouldn’t let her son go back to school quite so soon.

“I wouldn’t let him go, and usually I’m the one who makes sure all the kids are in school,” she said in a phone interview. “It was just too good a time to miss.”

The family hardly had another minute in Salt Lake without calls from the press or scheduled interviews.

“They were calling my cell phone. I didn’t even know where they got my number,” Matthew Hughes said. “I think now I’m known as the funny older brother of Sarah Hughes. I don’t know how that got started.”

Rick Reilly, the senior writer of “Sports Illustrated” who writes a weekly column in the magazine, called Matthew for an interview. He is quoted in Reilly’s column this week.

When Hughes arrived back at college Sunday night, his front door was covered in congratulatory messages from friends, and his answering machine was full.

Since winning gold, Sarah has had her picture taken for a Wheaties box, hung out with celebrities and is scheduled to appear on NBC’s “Saturday Night Live” this weekend.

“I guess she doesn’t need me to tell her jokes any more,” Matthew Hughes said. “Now she can hire a comedian.”