When it comes to approaching the grand, 95,000-seat venue in Pasadena's Arroyo Seco on New Year's Day, there might be no more experienced authority on the subject than Stanford defensive line coach Randy Hart.

"The stadium calls to you," he says. "You come down the hill and see the floats, and you realize it's the Rose Bowl. It never gets old."

For Hart, the Rose Bowl experience is always as fresh as its famously pristine grass. Even on his 10th trip back to the Granddaddy of Them All as either a player or a coach, the 66-year old Hart brims with excitement.

When one looks at the illustrious history he has witnessed firsthand at the iconic game, it's easy to understand why.

Hart vividly remembers his first experience as a player under legendary Ohio State coach Woody Hayes in the 1969 Rose Bowl. The Buckeyes stormed back to beat USC 27-16 in that one, overcoming O.J. Simpson's 171 rushing yards on their way to victory. Lou Holtz was in his first year as an Ohio State assistant in that game.

Two years later, Hart was a graduate assistant under Hayes for a more painful episode: Stanford, led by Heisman Trophy winner Jim Plunkett, spoiled the Buckeyes' national title hopes with a 27-17 victory in the 1971 Rose Bowl.

Nowadays, in his current job, Hart still frequently encounters Plunkett on the Stanford campus, and it's a meeting that always triggers memories over four decades old.

"The ones you lose are the ones that haunt you," Hart says. "I remember the frustration. Coach John Ralston had Stanford so well-prepared. Looking at it professionally, I definitely got out-coached. When we thought they would pass, they ran. And when we thought they would run, they passed the ball."

Hart also endured defeat with the Buckeyes in the 1985 Rose Bowl, but he enjoyed two wins in three tries as Washington's defensive line coach when the Huskies played in the game from 1991 to 1993. Hart then coached in Washington's 2001 Rose Bowl victory over Drew Brees-led Purdue before he ended up at his current Stanford gig, during which the Cardinal have punched three tickets to Pasadena.

So entering Rose Bowl trip No. 10, Hart owns a 5-4 record, and that figure hasn't been lost on his Stanford players.

"I told him, 'We don't want to make you .500,' " defensive lineman Harrison Phillips said with a laugh.

And in return, Hart is working diligently to ensure the Stanford program -- 1-1 so far in its recent Rose Bowl stretch -- also situates itself on the winning side of history.

"When you come back for a reunion, do you want to hear 'Rose Bowl champion' or 'Rose Bowl participant?' " Hart frequently asks his players.

Phillips says Hart might be the most industrious coach he has ever played for, and the fact his teachings are backed up with several generations of experience on one of college football's grandest stages resonates particularly loud with Stanford's defenders.

"He grades every single play at practice," Phillips says. "And he's never going to sit there and tell you how good of a player you are, because he's seen so many great ones in his career. You can blow up two guys and get a 10-yard sack, and he's going to tell you that you could have been lower and gone faster. He doesn't want you to be great; he wants you to be perfect."

So expect Hart to be barking again this Friday, preparing Stanford's stable of defensive linemen in pregame warm-ups with enthusiastic encouragement from his famously hoarse voice. The Cardinal will take on Iowa in the coach's latest foray into the Rose Bowl.

And although he has had first-hand experience into how details surrounding this game have changed over the past 46 years -- it's no longer the only televised postseason game, the locker rooms are newer, and teams arrive only six days in advance instead of a full two weeks like before -- Hart says that, at its core, the Grandaddy of Them All hasn't actually changed.

"It's the Rose Bowl," he glows. "It's the Rose Bowl. The team that wants to be there the most and the team that prepares the best wins this game. And if anyone every tells you that they don't want to go to this bowl, you can hit 'em in the nose, because it's always been the goal to get here. It hasn't lost any luster in my mind. It's the one you want to be in."