When South Medford High School senior Jackson Weiland plays basketball for the Panthers, he tries to tune out the noise of the crowd and focus on the court.

But on Thursday, he soaked up the noise at his former Hoover Elementary School and Hedrick Middle School, where students and staff cheered him on as he walked through the halls in his blue cap and gown.

In an interview from the South Medford gymnasium prior to “Grad Walk,” Weiland said he was most thankful for all of his teachers.

“They sacrificed so much and put so much into us,” Weiland said. “We wouldn’t be there without them. Just being able to see them and give them a hug and talk to them for one last time before we go off — it will be pretty special.”

With summer on the horizon, Weiland has time to reflect on his future as a student at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, one of the nation’s most competitive higher-education institutions. As much as he loves basketball, Weiland said he chose MIT for its academic programming.

“Education is most important to me because, once my college years are over, I know I’ll be moving on to the next chapter in life,” he said. “I know going to a school like MIT will best prepare me for that.”

Still, Weiland — a 6-foot-1 point guard — could not pass up the opportunity to play on the men’s basketball team.

“It’s just a bonus to continue to play the game I love and compete,” he said.

Weiland noted that he did not get into MIT on an athletic scholarship, but he said that playing basketball in high school helped get him admitted to the institution.

“It’s so competitive, and there are so many really smart, really well-rounded applicants,” Weiland said. “Basketball was something that helped separate me.”

Weiland’s graduating class of 2024 has been through a lot, having to begin high school with remote learning due to the coronavirus pandemic. For student athletes like Weiland, COVID-19 initially left them practicing amongst themselves.

“All the gyms were shut down, and if you wanted to get work in, you had to go outside in the hot sun, and it wasn’t as comfortable as just being in a nice gym,” Weiland said. “It was hard, but it was rewarding, too.”

The pandemic meant that the 2020-21 basketball season was pushed back from the regular winter time to a truncated, regional spring schedule in May-June of 2021.

Weiland served as the Panthers’ point guard, a position held by his father, Scott Weiland, at Sheldon High School in Eugene, where Jackson was born. The elder Weiland, who moved his family to Medford when Jackson was about 2, said coaching his son came “almost through osmosis.”

“I just didn’t want to be that dad that was driving him to do things he didn’t really care to do,” Scott Weiland said. “But that never was the case. He was extremely self-motivated.”

South Medford Head Boys Basketball Coach James Wightman said he started Weiland on the varsity team when Weiland was a freshman.

“It was not like I gave it to him; he had to earn it, and he did,” Wightman said. “Everybody saw that he was going to be the starting point guard as a freshman, and he was going to be here for the next three years.”

Weiland wound up finishing third all-time at South Medford in career points (1,571) and assists (367), second in career steals (155) and eighth in career rebounds (371) over 92 games. His 24.0 points per game this past season rank No. 2 in single-season scoring average for the Panthers, and he was the conference player of the year and repeated as an all-state honoree.

Wightman said Weiland could be on the “Mount Rushmore” of South Medford athletes since the school opened.

“He changed the game on the defensive end,” Wightman said.

The South Medford boys basketball coach marveled at the rarity of having one of his athletes go to a top institution.

“We knew he was going to go somewhere. We were hoping maybe the Ivy Leagues,” Wightman said. “But still, how can you argue or say anything that you get to go to MIT?”

Weiland’s admission to MIT says a lot about him, both as a person and as a student, Wightman added.

“You don’t just get that handed to you,” he said.

Wightman described Weiland as a student first and athlete second at a time when college sports are dominating the higher-education landscape.

For Wightman, his former student’s combination of smarts and stand-out athleticism is almost unreal.

“He’s going to go out there, and he’s going to grind in the classroom or on the floor,” Wightman said. “He’s just going to get it done. … He’s going to end up doing things that are bigger than the game of basketball.”

For Weiland, graduating from high school brings out mixed emotions.

“I’m excited to move on to the next chapter in life, but it’s also kind of sad, because it’s my last time here in the valley with all of these great friends and classmates I’ve grown up with,” he said.

But the coaching staff at MIT has already made him “feel welcome and as part of the family,” Weiland said.