Said colleague, a long-time reporter for a national newspaper, also coaches in junior football and it was after interviewing Jota at Compton Park he asked the then Wolves forward for a favour.
The kids had a cup final that weekend. Would he mind recording a short video message wishing them luck?
Jota was only too happy to oblige.
“Good luck in your cup final. I know you’re going to win,” he told them. The message was played in the dressing room before the match and they promptly did just that, winning 3-2 against a team they had never beaten before.
It is what happened next which makes the story so memorable.
A few weeks later, my colleague was getting out of his car ahead of a press conference at Compton Park, when he noticed someone making a beeline in his direction. It was Jota.
“How did the boys get on?” he asked, before being genuinely delighted when told it was his words of encouragement which had made all the difference.
“I couldn't believe such a superstar would even remember giving a few seconds of his time to a bunch of kids he'd never even met,” says my colleague now. “But it summed up the man for me.”
Over the past 48 hours, there have been countless similar stories shared about a player who was brilliant on the pitch and even more special off it.
Even now, it is so easy to forget just how young Jota and Ruben Neves, the two players who more than any other transformed Wolves, were when they first arrived at Molineux in 2017.
Jota was only 20 and yet even then was blessed with a remarkable maturity. Staff at Wolves used to marvel at how “low maintenance” he and Neves were. Their professionalism rubbed off on more senior team-mates during an era which at Wolves will forever be celebrated.
To talk of footballing memories, however, can feel terribly small when set against such an immense human tragedy, a family which has lost two sons, a husband and father.
The sport has lost a great player. The world has lost a great human being.