Taking a sport better known in the Ivy League than in the more modest environs of the Salem YMCA, where he first started coaching fencing in the 1960s, Joe Pechinsky helped send five fencers to the Olympics.

“He took kids who had no reason to believe in anything and made us believe anything is possible,’’ said Anne Barreda Underbrink, who was 10 when she and her brother first went to Mr. Pechinsky’s Tanner City Fencing Club in Peabody because their mother couldn’t find a babysitter one night.

Mr. Pechinsky, a former Peabody firefighter who survived the bombing of Pearl Harbor while in the Army, died Sept. 22 in Radius HealthCare Center at Danvers of complications from Alzheimer’s disease. He was 92 and had lived most of his life in Peabody.

Inducted into the US Fencing Association Hall of Fame in 1996, Mr. Pechinsky often coached without compensation, as was the case when he asked Underbrink’s mother to bring the children back for more training after that first lesson.

“She told him we had no money,’’ Underbrink said. “He got right in my mother’s face and said, ‘I don’t think I asked you for money. I’m asking you to bring them back.’ ’’

As he did for countless youngsters, Mr. Pechinsky supplied free lessons and fencing equipment to Underbrink and her brother. Under his wing, she was awarded a full scholarship to fence for the University of Notre Dame in Indiana.

“We were all his kids,’’ said Underbrink, who teaches high school in Casper, Wyo. “We were all special and unique to him. It was the unconditional love everybody dreams of and he seemed to have an inexhaustible supply.’’

A devout Catholic, Mr. Pechinsky lived much like a priest, former fencers and relatives recalled. He never married, attended Mass daily, and lived a life focused on the needs of others.

Known as “maestro’’ to his fencers, a title of highest respect in the fencing world, he was humble, well mannered, and never swore, according to former students. His all-purpose exclamation, whether he was filled with excitement or frustration, was: “Barn door! Barn door!’’

Those words inspired Cathy McClellan, a protégé who was a US Fencing national champion in the 1980s, to start Barn Door Fencers Club in North Conway, N.H., several years ago in honor of her mentor.

“He was so accepting, so encouraging,’’ said McClellan, who was awarded a full scholarship to fence for Penn State University. “He always just seemed to know how much potential you had and was always encouraging that.’’