They’re building a wrestling program from the mat up at Lithia Springs. When you talk to anyone associated with the Lions, building is the terminology that stands out.

So the 22 schools who’ll visit the school for this weekend’s varsity and junior varsity wrestling extravaganza may have to pardon the Lithia Springs dust, because right now it’s a construction zone.

The first thing to establish in what’s becoming the new Lithia Springs program is who’s holding the title deed. Because if you listen to Mark Sanker, the second-year coach, it doesn’t sound like he has it.

“This isn’t my team,” he said, pointing instead to the wrestlers who don the green and gold singlets. “This isn’t about me. They’re the ones who’ve got to build the house and they’re building a mansion. They’ve got to furnish it because they’ve already got the structure.”

The wrestlers — like Joe Furr, who is 13-0 at 152 pounds and Jake Swinson, who is 18-0 at 160 — have responded with a certain pride of ownership. They’re the experienced ones, along with Ben Ford and Jason Morrison, taking the younger ones under their wings.

“We’ve still got a good ways to go, but we’re getting there,” Swinson said. “You can’t turn it around in a year or a year and a half.”

Chimed in Furr, “You can’t build Rome in a day and you can’t build a team in a day.”

Where are they trying to go? How will they know when they’ve arrived? Those are logical questions that best can be answered by where they’re coming from.

There are trophies on shelves above the mats in the school’s wrestling room in the back of the campus. That represents the past — back to the not-so-long ago days when current Alexander principal Nathan Hand was their coach, when Zack Bowen won a state championship at 215 pounds, when Josh Dallas and Cody Laymon were finishing third or fourth in their respective classes.

As recently as 2003, Lithia Springs was eighth, only 10.5 points behind fourth-place Alexander in the Class AAAA state meet — the same Alexander that ranks as the county’s top team.

Though that may represent a height from which Lithia Springs has fallen, it does not, Sanker says, necessarily represent the future that the Lions are trying to make their new reality.

“The magnitude of wrestling here, in terms of the involvement, the dedication, the support we’re getting — the team has almost tripled in size,” Sanker said. “It’s been a blessing to see the amount of growth. Coaches have acknowledged the program throughout the state.”

Whether the Lions ever have another state champion or somebody who even places at state isn’t Sanker’s primary motivation — although he is quick to point out the potential that Furr and Swinson have for giving the Lions their first state-placers since Laymon finished third at 145 in 2007.

More important to the coach is the impact that rebuilding is having on its wrestlers, which is unmistakable. Sanker compares it to a family because “we shed tears, laugh together and are there for each other.”

Swinson, who missed all last season with a freak knee injury he suffered jumping a fence, may be one of the bigger surprises.

“To a lot of people, I’m a nobody,” Swinson said. “My freshman year, I turned a lot of heads by going to state, but I didn’t wrestle my sophomore year.”

That was because of knee injury and a shoulder he messed up. He had operations to repair the knee and the shoulder and seemed to be in line for a lengthy recuperation period.

“They told me I was not going to wrestle until August, but I started wrestling in May,” Swinson said. “This is pretty much my only sport and when they told me I was going to have to wait that long, I was like, ‘No way.’ ”

In addition to quick recoveries, the work the Lions have put in to get better has paid dividends.

“I can tell a definite difference,” Furr said. “I feel 10 times better than I did last year. I feel like I have a shot at at least placing. I don’t want to sound cocky, but I’ve wrestled all year, played baseball all summer, me and Jake have practiced, and with the running, I’m a lot more conditioned than I was at the beginning of last year.”

The Lions have gotten good results from Ford (10-2 at 145 pounds) and Morrison (11-1 at 135). Sanker, Furr and Swinson see potential in the younger wrestlers like McCullian Ray, a sophomore at 130 pounds, and Elbert Patterson, a freshman at 125. In fact, Furr sounds like a coach when he talks about them.

“It can be tough when you see options for something [they could do while wrestling in a match] and they don’t see it yet,” Furr said. “But even if they don’t come off the mat as winners, at least they did their best.”

And for now, including this weekend, that’s the goal.

“Every coach would love to win state,” Sanker said. “But if we’re developing citizens, men, people who grow up to be successful and live in a righteous way, I’ll give up a state title for that any day.”