Sports agent: Let NCAA hopefuls use agents

(CBS News) A dentist who became a powerful sports agent called on the NCAA on "CBS This Morning" Wednesday to allow college athletes to hire agents and to have the same collective bargaining rights that the pros do.

In the middle of college football's bowl season, Dr. Jerry Argovitz told Anthony Mason and Norah O'Donnell that the NCAA has a legal "cartel" when it comes to young athletes because the association bans them from seeking the advice of an agent when they sign up to play in college.

"Oh, yeah, they can hire a lawyer," Argovitz said. "Now I don't know many poor families that can afford, you know, $2,000 to have a lawyer read a contract, and the contract is so vague I can't even understand it, so there's no way a 17, 18-year-old young man can understand it."

The co-owner of the now-defunct U.S. Football League's Houston Gamblers said the NCAA has an agenda for keeping college athletes under amateur status.

"If they pay the players, they become employees, then they lose their tax-free status, and they also have to furnish workman's compensation," Argovitz said.

Argovitz wrote about his experiences in his new memoir, "Super Agent: The One Book the NFL and NCAA Don't Want You to Read."

(Above, watch Dr. Jerry Argovitz's full interview about the business of college football)