RAMSTEIN AIR BASE, Germany — When Gary Steffensmeier, a three-time NCAA Division I All-American wrestler at Northern Iowa University, offered to help coach Dave Izzo’s Ramstein wrestling team, the effect on Izzo’s program was more than just a breath of fresh air.

It was more like an Iowa tornado.

“After 28 years of coaching, the wind kind of goes out of your sails,” Ramstein veteran Izzo said. “He brought a new intensity to the wrestling room.”

That intensity was born of a passion for the sport Steffensmeier, the youngest of 13 children, developed while growing up in Fort Madison, Iowa. With seven older brothers, Steffensmeier wrestled all his life. Sometimes, he recalled, it felt like he was wrestling for his life.

“I never beat my oldest brother for the first 18 years of my life,” Steffensmeier said, even though he was a two-time high school state champion.

From prep state champion, Steffensmeier went on to college wrestling. He completed his Northern Iowa career in 1992 with 115 victories, fifth on the all-time list at that wrestling hotbed, and a .793 winning percentage. He graduated to coaching berths at Illinois State University and for the Texas National Team, where he tutored seven All-Americans.

Then it was back to competition again, this time internationally, with Dan Gable’s Hawkeye Wrestling Club in Iowa. He spent three years at the club before hanging up his singlet for good and settling down with his wife, Army Maj. Margi Toillion-Steffensmeier, and their three children.

And when Toillion-Steffensmeier was assigned to Pirmasens, Germany, all of her husband’s wrestling fervor had to be channeled into volunteering with a wrestling team an ocean away from the big-time programs he knew.

Even so, he said, volunteer coaching is a channel wide enough to handle his love of the sport.

“Coaching’s more fun in a lot of ways,” said Steffensmeier, who began at Ramstein High School as a substitute teacher before being hired full-time to teach algebra and math. “You get to watch them try to reach their goals. Coaching lets me be a positive influence in kids’ lives.”

That positive influence was evident last month at the European championships in Wiesbaden, Germany. Ramstein used many of Steffensmeier’s techniques, qualifying four first-year wrestlers and winning the Division I team title.

“He showed us techniques for takedowns and setting up takedowns which were new to me,” Izzo said. “I could see the improvement of our kids on their feet.”

Steffensmeier said he tries to teach concepts as much as technique.

“We tell them, ‘This is where you need to get to (to score),’” Steffensmeier said. “‘How you get there is up to you. Wrestling is an art. You paint the picture.’”

Steffensmeier makes sure, however, that the picture gets painted with a big dollop of Iowa-wrestling attitude.

“We stress that it’s a fight out there for six minutes,” Steffensmeier said. “We tell them, ‘Don’t stop. Don’t get pinned. If you can fight for six minutes — for six entire minutes — you’ll be tough to beat.’”

And not just on the mat.

“Every day, we put kids in adverse situations, going up against someone they can’t beat or battling fatigue,” Steffensmeier said. “They learn to understand what sacrifice is, what hard work is. If they get taken down, if they lose, they know there’s no one to blame but themselves. They learn to be better men.”

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