By Nathan Jendrick

After a description was written by a friend who spent sixty-seven seconds with me, I feel I must confess. Yes, I am a nervous swim husband.

I don't know what it is about the BlackBerry that I constantly toy with pre-race. It's a distraction; I'm constantly behind on e-mails so when my heart is beating so fast I can hear it in my ears—only left to wonder what those around me must be thinking of the sound—it gives me a brief escape. The problem is I can't concentrate. My answers are left to "yes" or "no" or "she hasn't raced yet, Mom."

I can't sit still. I blink a lot. My mouth goes dry. Sometimes, I'm not kidding, the room starts to spin. This all starts the morning of the race so one can imagine how difficult things like walking, talking and eating become.

I annoy the people around me. Not by talking, but by not responding. I don't hear them. Apparently, I go deaf when my wife walks out behind the blocks. It's not true, in reality, I just forget to breathe and tend to lose consciousness for a few minutes.

Kidding.

She dives in. I gasp. She cuts through the water like a knife, I feel like I'm being stabbed in the chest. She looks powerful, I feel weak. I'm like a child trying to lift a Ford.

I am not ashamed of this.

When she's twenty-five meters from the wall I instinctively jump to my feet. Sometimes I yell, usually I can't. My mouth hangs open an inch, my lips too dry to lock shut.

She touches the wall, I seize up. I stare down at the pool; she and everyone else in the arena turn their heads to gaze upon the bright, bold scoreboard. While they do that, I watch the water begin to calm.

I can't see her face, my seat being too angled for a clear view of the finish. I see her move casually off to the side of the pool, head under water. I wait. I need oxygen. So does she. Finally she breaks the surface and I see that beautiful smile. That's what victory looks like any day of the week.

At the Olympic Trials my wife made the team in the 100-meter breaststroke. I was the last to know that.

I was asked a dozen times over the next day why it took me so long to react to her qualifying. The honest answer is because I didn't care. Her making the United States Olympic Team is instead an amazing byproduct of the most important piece: Her happiness.

I don't shiver with nerves because her placing matters. It doesn't. I think most people who have a loved one competing in any type of sport would agree that success isn't measured by winning or by losing, it's about how they feel when it's over.

We all have our favorite athletes, and we all feel for them when they find success or suffer through a defeat. But don't always think that just because they didn't come out on top that they really lost. Look for a smile, because that's what matters.

Nathan Jendrick is a columnist for Swimnetwork.com.