pull the rear cover on lower unit (on back right below top cover),youll see the shift fork and you can see what its doing (after checking drive coupler). Sounds like you may have broke a upper gear or might just be a linkage problem. You will be able to haqve someone shift it back and forth while you watch fork rotate,Good luck,Smitty

Thanks for your help and advise guys, I will check things out ! The summer is too short in Pa. waste time waiting for the mechanic to have a look in a week or so. Gary

Indian Summer, A bravo drive will not shift well when the shaft is not turning, Do not try to force in gear or you can snap the ball that is on the end of the cable going to the drive and you will have to replace it, More then likely its the coupler by your explanation of what happened, A buddy of mine has lost both of his in the last year and oddly enuff was the same area both times coming out of the no wake zone and powering up thats when they let go, Jeff

Pull the prop and check the hub, it may have spun inside the prop.
You can pull the end cover and check to see if its in neautral. If it is, the prop shaft should turn freely.
A simple fix if your drive is stuck in gear and you cant start the motor is just disconnect the shifter handle cable at the motor and move the levers to neutral. Takes about 5 secs. Then try putting it in or out of gear by hand.

Indian Summer, the same thing happened to me 3 weeks ago and it was the drive coupler. The drive doesn't shift because the input shaft isn't turning. Like everyone else is saying, start it and look at the input shaft behind the motor and you will be able to tell if that is the problem right away. It took a couple of nights with a friends fork lift and $400, Go for it if you can find something to lift it or pull it forward. It is a fairly easy replacement.

Check your coupler first but my best guess is that you broke the gear in the upper unit and now the shifting fork is tweeked from the gear that broke. You said it popped when it let go. Most couplers just let the motor rev up with no popping noise. Drain the oil out in your drive and check the magnets on the plug then pull the rear cover and look inside with a flashlight. Good luck!!